An Alternative and Affordable DVB-T Feed for Small Gap Fillers

Digital television is an integral part of modern society, and the quality of the service its has exceeded all expectations. Television stations are divided into national and regional licensing categories, governed by the broadcasting regulations of each European Union member state. DVB-T gap fillers are used to provide and enhance the television signal in rural areas using satellite transport streams (TS) as feeds. However, for regional television stations—particularly in areas lacking network coverage—retransmitting their transport streams via standard digital terrestrial reception and rebroadcasting is often insufficient. This direct Re-transmission method frequently suffers from severe signal intermittency and broadcast interruptions. This paper presents the design, field deployment, and long-term evaluation (8760 h) of an ultra-low-cost, license-exempt DVB-over-IP gap filler architecture. The proposed system integrates Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices to convert a pristine DVB-T transport stream into an IP data stream, transmit it via a 5.64 GHz wireless bridge to bypass natural obstacles, and accurately reconstruct the digital TV signal at the remote gap filler. Empirical results demonstrate that the proposed IP stream method yields a 95.51% reduction in total annual downtime, elevating link availability from 86.26% to 99.38%. The system virtually eliminates environmental signal interruptions, with the only recorded downtime caused by a local power outage. Notably, this robust reliability is achieved at approximately 5% of the CEcapital expenditure (CapEx) required for conventional professional microwave backhaul solutions. Furthermore, the residual bandwidth of the wireless IP backbone provides a ready-made foundation for deploying future municipal network services, such as local Wi-Fi hotspots and LoRa-based Internet of Things (IoT) telemetry networks.