PEAK3 Debuts Internet Of Things And Edge Pathway Solution Using ATSC 3.0

Alp Sezen and Chris McGhay have formed PEAK3, an IoT and edge pathway solution focused on building businesses using the ATSC 3.0 broadcast spectrum.

The IP-based ATSC 3.0 standard ushers in a large-scale advance for broadcasting technology that brings together over-the-air (OTA) broadcasting, the internet, and limitless additional use cases that provide the opportunity for PEAK3 to leverage broadcast spectrum and demonstrate the new wireless data-delivery capabilities that will be available for all commercial interests.

PEAK3 has entered into a spectrum-usage agreement on a price-per-GB basis with Sinclair Broadcast Group. This initial long-term license agreement provides PEAK3 the bandwidth capacity necessary to effect the multiple large-scale business models where broadcasting can play a critical role in efficiency, effectiveness, and security with edge communications. PEAK3 says it’s “proactively in discussions with other spectrum providers with the aim of achieving nationwide coverage in the coming months.”

Alp Sezen, PEAK3’s CEO, brings 30-plus years of technical hardware and software design from edge to the cloud, including RF solution deployments. “We are going through our sixth evolution of computing and each stage has created opportunities and challenges,” he says. “The ’70s utilized the ‘Mainframe’, the ’80s embraced the ‘Client Server’, the 2000s introduced three-tier architecture, and the 2010s was the era of multi-tenancy or cloud. Now we are moving to distributed-edge architectures. Computing is shifting towards edge computing to meet new workloads that customers demand.

“The evolution of distributed computing brings new values through applications residing at the edge but also brings new challenges. The ability to extract data and deliver data from disparate devices at the edge has created a bottleneck that needs to be solved in the coming decade. ATSC 3.0 data delivery over the air will be a critical asset in accomplishing this goal, especially with the exponential growth of edge devices that have proliferated. ATSC 3.0 can scale with this growth, providing one-to-many connectivity.”

ATSC 3.0 is optimized to support highly flexible Distributed Transmission System network architectures, which will dramatically improve signal reception in indoor and outdoor environments, including small portable devices and mobile receivers. The protocols implemented in the new broadcast standard are very similar to those used in 5G cellular networks, but optimized for broadcasting over a much larger area, due to the relatively higher transmission power levels, thus requiring far fewer transmission sites compared to traditional cellular network base stations.

“Alp, our technical team and I look at this technology differently,” said Chris McGhay, PEAK3 chief strategy/revenue officer. “We come from a place where adding clear value to a solution-stack carries a lot of weight when organizations look to scale a current edge strategy or are looking to apply novel efficiency or security measures to their current architecture.”

The PEAK3 team is field testing several use-cases with technical partners and will be drafting supportive white papers for the technical community that clearly demonstrate multiple ways whereby the ATSC 3.0 spectrum will provide value to their customers.

There will be an estimated 6 billion edge or IoT devices deployed and connected by 2030 within North America, encompassing both the commercial and consumer markets and wireless services provided by broadcasters, PEAK3 says. These will be both complementary and supplementary to incumbent telecom data providers.

Sezen said: “With PEAK3 holding a long-term licensing agreement on broadcast spectrum with Sinclair, we will be able to support the delivery of data and services to customers, that alleviating the data download congestion the incumbents are starting to see.”