You can soon watch movies, live sports on phone without the internet. Here’s how

Do you watch Bollywood movies, TV shows and live sports on your phone?

According to studies, you are among the millions of people who prefer it this way. However, those who do so are dependent on data and Wi-Fi. But if all goes well, hundreds of millions of people will soon be able to do so even if they don’t have the internet on their phone or access to reliable Wi-Fi.

But what do we know? How does this work?

What we know

This service is known as Direct-to-Mobile (D2M). It allows mobile phones, even those without mobile data or Wi-Fi, to stream live content directly from satellite and broadcast towers.

This will be accessible to those with feature phones which cost between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000. There are currently over 200 million such feature phone users in India. The technology essentially transforms your phone into a TV using broadcast signals.

This will let even those in areas with poor connectivity watch TV shows, movies and live sports. Unlike mobile networks, this stream is unlikely to crash due to heavy congestion.

How will it work?

According to reports, phone-makers Lava and HMD are developing devices in the Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500 price range that will allow users to access this technology. The SL-3000 chipsets in the phones have been developed by Saankhya Labs, which is owned by the Tata Group.

Initially, content from the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati will be streamed on these devices. There are reportedly plans for smartphones with the D2M capacity. Saankhya Labs merged with Tata-owned Tejas Networks last year. It essentially works on the same principle as FM radio, where a signal is transmitted to a receiver. It is also similar to direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting.

Trials of the technology have already been conducted in Delhi and Bengaluru. Over the next six to nine months, more tests are planned to be conducted across nearly two dozen cities using Prasar Bharati’s infrastructure. After that, the technology could be rolled out across the country.

That’s not all. The government could also send breaking news, public announcements and emergency alerts, allowing them to communicate with millions more people in rural and remote areas. Industry experts have estimated it could cost around Rs 8,000 crore to establish the D2M network across India.

However, telecom companies, who make thousands of crores of rupees selling data packs to the Indian public, have pushed back against it.

‘Proud to be associated with it’

But those backing the project remain confident.

“We are proud to be associated with both Lava and HMD for developing the D2M feature phone. This is the very first time that India-made silicon is getting a socket in the phone ecosystem,” Parag Naik, Executive Vice President, Tejas Networks, and former CEO of Saankhya Labs, was quoted as saying by The Times of India. “This will enable more than 200 million feature phone users to access content without the internet and at zero access cost.”

Lava International ED and CMO Sanjeev Agarwal added that feature phone integration is currently being undertaken at their R&D centre in Noida.

“Our team is working on the development cycle for smooth integration of the chip into the hardware. We are looking at a time span of six months to bring the feature phone model to the market in the range of Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,200,” Agarwal said.

Proof of concept paper 

IIT Kanpur in 2022 published a proof-of-concept study on D2M entitled ‘D2M Broadcast 5G Broadband Convergence Roadmap for India’. The institute partnered with Saankhya Labs for its hardware requirements, including chipset and radio. It also released a white paper on the subject as well as several recommendations.

The institute in the white paper claimed that after the D2M network is established, broadcasters can use it to deliver several applications including TV and radio. A centralised system would allow users to access unlimited content at essentially a minimal price.

However, it added that the current mobile phones don’t support D2M. It added that phones would need to add a separate baseband processing unit, an antenna, low-noise amplifiers, baseband filters and a receiver, which means that a big logistical and investment challenge remains.

With inputs from agencies