Big Blue Marble's Nakolos Platform Achieves World-First 3GPP Release 19 Implementation

Big Blue Marble has announced that its Nakolos platform has become the first end-to-end 5G Broadcast solution globally to implement the complete feature set of 3GPP Release 19.

Developed in collaboration with industry ecosystem partners bitstem, TRedess, and SYES, the milestone follows two years of standardization contributions alongside the European Broadcasting Union and Broadcast Networks Europe.

The carrier-grade platform introduces crucial operational capabilities designed to lower deployment costs, including Time Frequency Interleaving (TFI) for signal robustness using existing sites, and CAS-Muting functionality, which allows operators to repurpose legacy DVB-T2 infrastructure. Additionally, the release introduces support for early-deployment frequency bands B112 (U.S. market) and B113 (Europe and global markets).

Paired with bitstem's newly released 5GR receiver platform and compatible transmitters from TRedess and SYES, operators can now validate full, interoperable 5G Broadcast chains in real-world environments ahead of mass consumer device availability.
 
Built on a carrier-grade, 3GPP-native architecture, Nakolos has evolved continuously from Release 14 through Release 19. The platform now supports a complete set of new capabilities that directly address the economic and operational realities of 5G Broadcast rollout, including Time Frequency Interleaving (TFI), which enables the reuse of existing transmission sites while improving signal robustness; CAS-Muting functionality, which allows existing DVB-T2 infrastructure to be repurposed for 5G Broadcast transmission, substantially reducing initial deployment costs; and support for the new early-deployment frequency bands B112, targeting the U.S. market, and B113, targeting Europe and other global markets.
 
In combination with Release 19-compatible transmitter solutions from TRedess and SYES, and the new bitstem 5GR receiver platform, released in conjunction with this announcement, customers can now validate and deploy complete interoperable 5G Broadcast chains under real operating conditions rather than in isolated proof-of-concept environments.
 
"Release 19 represents a concrete step forward for commercial 5G Broadcast, not a future promise," said Johann Mika, Chief Innovation Officer at Big Blue Marble. "The features introduced in this release give network operators a credible path to cost-efficient deployments using infrastructure they already have. With Nakolos, they can begin that transition today, ahead of the first generation of commercial 5G Broadcast-enabled consumer devices."
 
With commercial device availability expected in the coming years, Big Blue Marble positions Nakolos as the platform for operators who need to be infrastructure-ready before mass-market adoption begins.

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