Shuichi Deguchi(Senior Manager, Service Strategy, Corporate Management Strategy Division, NTT)
December 2005
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications clearly stated their intention to promote retransmission of terrestrial digital broadcasts via IP multicast in the second interim report compiled by the Information and Communications Council. Shuich Deguchi of NTT is the very person who has been striving to promote the system using technology that has stunned the industries concerned including terrestrial TV broadcasters.
In the related industries, many still feel uncertain about retransmission of digital terrestrial broadcasts via IP multicast, both from technical and systematical standpoints. Terrestrial broadcasts are the mainstay broadcasting service that is licensed in each area. Is IP multicast capable of preventing illegal out-of-area retransmission? Is the system able to preserve the integrity of broadcast? Is the IP transmission able to prevent cyber terrorism? How about the protection of anonymity of recipients? As a distributor of basic information to the public, the nature of the media itself is creating such concerns due to its tremendous social influence. In response to these questions, Mr. Deguchi says most of the fundamental problems will be solved. Furthermore, he thinks the problem concerning copyrights, the biggest barrier at the moment, will be settled in due course. However, there still remain questions on how effective the new system will be to solve the challenges accompanying the coming cessation of analogue broadcasts, which is an inherent problem of digital terrestrial broadcasting, and to what extent the IP multicast can disseminate once it is implemented. The author delves into the mechanism, potential, and reality of the IP multicast system in the interview.