Avis du 17 avril 2007 portant sur quatre projets d'arrêté concernant la télévision mobile personnelle et la radio numérique
The French Superior Audiovisual Council has been asked to give its opinion on four draft decrees, pursuant to article 12 of law no. 86-1067 of September 30, 1986 on freedom of communication:
- an order relating to personal mobile television shown in digital mode by terrestrial hertzian or satellite means in S band, setting the characteristics of the signals transmitted;
- a decree on the characteristics of equipment for receiving personal mobile television services broadcast in digital mode by terrestrial hertzian or S-band satellite means;
- an order concerning radio broadcast in digital mode by terrestrial hertzian or satellite means in L or S band, setting the characteristics of the signals emitted;
- an order concerning the characteristics of equipment for receiving radio services broadcast in digital mode by terrestrial hertzian or satellite means in L or S band.
The Council, meeting in plenary session on April 17 2007, issued a favorable opinion on the four drafts, with the following observations.
1. The Conseil is strongly committed to the rapid development of personal mobile TV and digital radio. It therefore hopes that the decrees will be issued as soon as possible, even if certain technical data will need to be modified or clarified in the near future as a result of standardization work or trials carried out in France and abroad.
2. The Council notes that EN 302 583 and TS 102 585 have not yet been published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). It will be necessary for these standards to be fully defined when the decrees are published, so that the consistency of all the technical features set out in them can be confirmed.
3. The Council notes that the draft decree laying down the characteristics of personal mobile TV signals requires the use of the common Ismacryp scrambling algorithm, as described in Appendix A of technical specification TS 102 474. This has not yet been published by ETSI. It should be ensured that Annex A of TS 102 474 does indeed refer to the Ismacryp algorithm. In any case, it would be clearer to amend the first two sentences of Article 3 by adding the word "Ismacryp" after the words "scrambling algorithm" and the following words after the words "Ismacryp".
"the word "Simulcrypt".
4. The Council notes that the draft decrees authorize the use of the DMB standard for terrestrial digital terrestrial radio diffusion in Band III and L-Band. It considers that this standard is indeed likely to enable the rapid and appropriate development of digital radio. Without ruling out this hypothesis for the future, it considers that it would be premature to add an additional standard whose characteristics and potential are not known with sufficient precision. However, the coexistence of several norms could complicate the regulation of digital radio services.
5. The Commission stresses that it will be within its remit to allocate, where appropriate, a logical number to the digital radio services it has authorized.
6. The Commission insists on the need to enable all radio service categories to access digital diffusion, in order to preserve the plurality to which it has always been deeply attached. It therefore considers it essential for the authorities to create a financial scheme to support the paperless broadcasting of community radio stations, which fulfil a mission of local social communication.
This notice will be published in the Journal officiel de la République française.
Paris, April 17, 2007
For the French Superior Audiovisual Council :
The Chairman,
Michel BOYON