Comparing ATSC 3.0 Deployments In South Korea, The U.S., and Jamaica

By Dylan Ross • September 5, 2025

It turns out, there's other countries in the world besides the United States. 4K ATSC 3.0 broadcasts were deployed over 8 years ago in South Korea with DRM. Have you ever wondered what other countries have done with ATSC 3.0? If so, this article is for you. I personally believe the United States and Jamaica should learn from South Korea.

There's always been a lot of talk about DRM, but with the recent discussions about a "high noon" requirement with cryptographic certificates, I thought this would be the appropriate time to make this article which is a culmination of information I've gathered over the past year or two.

Versions of ATSC 3.0 Deployed Around The World:

지상파 UHD | South Korea

A South Korean YouTuber using 지상파 UHD (ATSC 3.0) on an LG TV

DRM:

지상파 UHD (Korean for Terrestrial UHD) launched on May 31, 2017 with DRM enabled on day one. The South Korean Government oversees compliance and oversight of the DRM technology called UHDCP. UHDCP is standardized, nationally managed, royalty-free, and is based on AES-128 “CENC” (ISO/IEC 23001-7 Common Encryption). Time-shifting and DVR functionality works without an internet connection, but a recording is tied to the device that recorded it (Source: LG South Korea). In order to sell a TV set in South Korea, it must include an ATSC 3.0 tuner and support the government’s encryption technology, UHDCP. Before being sold, TV sets must pass compliance testing at the “지상파 UHD 방송 콘텐츠 보호 인증센터” run by the Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA). This verifies that UHDCP is implemented correctly. RAPA is a non-profit corporation established under the Ministry of Science and ICT (과학기술정보통신부), a government organization. Costs for implementing DRM on ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in South Korea are very low. MMT is the transport technology used for ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in South Korea, and is what UHDCP works with.

Signal Signing:

South Korea has not implemented signal signing.

Audio Codec:

지상파 UHD uses MPEG-H audio, with royalties paid to a patent pool run by Via Licensing Alliance. MPEG-H is generally cheaper to license than Dolby AC-4.

NEXTGEN TV | United States

DRM:

The body overseeing DRM in the U.S. is a private, for-profit organization made up of major broadcast organizations called the A3SA. This organization oversees compliance and oversight of the A3SA DRM technology which is built on top of Google’s Widevine. A3SA DRM implementation at a station is $1,000/year in small markets, $1,500/year in medium sized markets, and $2,000/year in large markets (Source: A3SA). A3SA DRM currently only works with devices that support Google Widevine, and broadcasts that are transported in the ROUTE/DASH format. ATSC 3.0 broadcasts using MMT format currently have no DRM solution under the A3SA. Microsoft PlayReady encryption alongside Google Widevine encryption on the same stream is possible per A/360, 5.7.2 CENC and EME Support, but Apple’s FairPlay is incompatible with both ROUTE/DASH and MMT. The only option to have DRM support on Apple devices is to provide a separate internet HLS stream (or possibly an OTA multicast stream) that an A/344 app can link to as generic web content.

Signal Signing:

In the United States, all ATSC 3.0 stations are required to have signal signing enabled per A3SA regulations. There is a date certain set forth by the A3SA that will mandate ATSC 3.0 receivers prevent a channel from being displayed if there is no certificate or if a certificate is expired. A cryptographic certificate issued by A3SA partner Eonti costs $998/year per station or $899/year per station if 2 years worth are bought at once (Source: A3SA).

At 1:18:18, the moderator discusses his concerns about A3SA signal signing certificates

Audio Codec:

NEXTGEN TV in the U.S. uses Dolby AC-4 audio, with royalties paid to Dolby.

NEXTGEN TV | Jamaica

A Jamaican NEXTGEN TV promotional video

DRM:

Jamaica hasn’t chosen a DRM standard yet, but whatever is chosen will be based on AES-128 “CENC” (ISO/IEC 23001-7 Common Encryption).

Signal Signing:

The Jamaican government realizes that U.S. ATSC 3.0 equipment is meant to look for whether or not a signal is signed. For that reason, Jamaica is realistically considering either using the A3SA as a certificate authority or setting up their own government-run certificate authority.

Audio Codec:

NEXTGEN TV in Jamaica uses Dolby AC-4 audio, with royalties paid to Dolby.

NEXTGEN TV | Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago just launched their first ATSC 3.0 station a few months ago at the Port of Spain (they too call it NEXTGEN TV). As more information from Trinidad and Tobago becomes available, I'll update the article. There's some social media posts of someone using the GTMedia HDTV Mate to pick up the ATSC 3.0 broadcasts there.

DTV+ | Brazil

Brazil literally just announced formally that they are adopting ATSC 3.0 a little over a week ago. Like South Korea, they're calling it something other than "NEXTGEN TV". As more info becomes available, I'll update the article.

India

While not the official terrestrial TV standard, Inida will be deploying ATSC 3.0 as a supplement to data delivery from cellular networks, providing free TV channels directly to feature phones and smartphones. The point is to provide cheap one-way data connectivity to those in rural regions and to those with low socioeconomic status. The feature phone shown in the video thumbnail below will cost less than ₹2,000 (less than $20 USD) and will be made in India.

A video of the FreeStream feature phone and smartphone launched in May 2025

About Signal Signing and Digital Cryptographic Certificates

Signal signing and cryptographic certificates aren’t inherently bad at all. This website you’re reading this article on had a certificate issued in order to serve this website over HTTPS. In the context of broadcast, cryptographic certificates are overkill, but again, not harmful. Is it nice knowing that your channel is coming from a trusted, reliable source? Sure. However, I would think that what I’m receiving is the real thing, as it’s not easy to deploy a multi kilowatt ERP broadcast 1,000 feet in the air illegally and happen to find frequencies available not to cancel out with (making this hypothetical pirate broadcast moot) in the reality of our shoehorned, sardined public airwaves.

The problem with A3SA signal signing certificates

If these certificates were made available for free, just like the certificates issued on this website and millions of other websites, there wouldn’t be much of a problem. However, the A3SA is extracting an absurd amount of money for signal signing which, as I stated earlier, doesn’t have much of a reason to even be deployed in the first place. South Korea’s successful launch of ATSC 3.0 in 2017 proves that we don’t need cryptographic certificates for signal signing in the U.S.

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