Mobile TV Overblown, Analyst Says

But mobile TV seems to be “the next high growth consumer technology,” Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding said last week at CeBIT. Early pilots suggest of European mobile phone subscribers -- around 200 million people -- will use mobile TV, she said. Before that can happen, spectrum must be harmonized across Europe, a widely accepted standard must be chosen and the TV Without Frontiers directive amended to create a legal framework for mobile TV programming, she said: “We cannot afford to sleep on this.”

Reding urged govts. to quickly come up with a minimum harmonization of radio bands across Europe to allow mobile TV services to launch. She pressed member countries to accelerate talks on how to use the “digital dividend” from the shutoff of analog TV services. Reding warned industry she needs its “undivided support and commitment” in coming up with spectrum requirements for mobile TV: “I also expect concrete proposals on a Europe-wide approach to standards, interoperability and coverage.” The Commission will publish a communique early next year on “strengthening the internal market for mobile TV,” Reding said.

Too Little Too Late?

DTV and multimedia services to mobile devices “developed substantially during the last year,” said Soeren Hess of the IP Datacast Forum, an international industry association trying to spur deployment of digital mobile broadcasting. Trials using various technologies and services have been successful all over Europe, and the technologies and consumer market are now ready for commercial launches, he told us.

Commercial networks are under development in Finland, and commercial mobile broadcasting will begin this year in Italy, Hess said. In parts of Germany systems are planned for the coming months. “Extensive market research and the commercial trials indicate a strong market push for mobile broadcasting,” Hess said.

The biggest problem facing industry is the lack of UHF spectrum, said Hess. In some EU countries, frequency spectrum may not come available before the final digital switchover in 2012. That allows mobile broadcasting to be deployed only regionally, or locally in some highly populated areas, he said.

2012 is “definitely too late for a technology which is ready for commercial implementation and for which there is a strong consumer market requirement,” Hess said. Industry is miffed at the lack of firm commitment to mobile broadcasting from telecom administrations and govts., most of which appear to be waiting for the “results of detailed planning at the ITU” regional radio conference in May and June before deciding on spectrum resource allocation, he said.

More Questions Than Answers

Spectrum availability is a crucial questions but there are others, Patel said. In countries like the U.K., where public broadcast TV is funded by TV set owners, it’s unclear whether mobile TV handset owners will have to buy additional TV licenses. Any mandatory license requirement is likely to hinder market development significantly, he said.

How UHF spectrum freed in the digital switchover is made available is also up in the air, Patel said. The Digital Video Bcstg. Project (DVB) says govts. will reserve digital MUX, a session management protocol, for DVB-H use, as is being done in Finland. But some regulators, including the U.K. Office of Communications, want to auction spectrum to the highest bidder, much as the FCC has done.

Consumers don’t seem too excited about mobile TV, Patel said. In theory, harmonizing spectrum bands to be used for mobile TV across Europe would allow consumers to access TV while roaming: “Our end-user panels have indicated that this is one of the only benefits of mobile TV -- e.g., access to home programming while travelling.”

Strategy Analytics’ consumer research appears to confirm the findings of a survey by RBC Capital Markets. That report found that around 75% of roughly 1,000 Americans polled said they had no interest in watching TV on their mobile phones, CNet reported. It said a Yankee Group survey reach the same conclusion last year.

But Modeo Pres. Michael Schueppert said consumers are very interested. Speaking at a DVB World 2006 conference in Dublin this month, Schueppert predicted consumers will watch mobile TV using cellphones and devices such as portable media players and laptops. Cellphones will be the largest device segment but will represent only 50% of the market.

Eighteen-to-35-year-olds will be the dominant segment for mobile TV, Schueppert said. And “by 2009, every major TV brand will launch a made-for-mobile version of their channel.” He predicted DVB-H will be the most widely adopted mobile broadcast standard, saying standards based on digital audio broadcasting or code-division multiple access “are dead-ends.”

But technology battles “are a sideshow,” said Schueppert. The most interesting feud is “brewing between content owners and wireless carriers for control of mobile TV.” The outcome of the battle will be largely determined by spectrum auctions in 2006 and 2008, he said.

Technology wars will have a minor impact on which companies make the most royalties from mobile TV but won’t really affect users’ experience, Schueppert told us. The fight between the content and carrier industries, however, “may well impact the channel people see, who they buy them from, and how they are packaged.” It’s hard to say how this will play out, “but most likely the person who owns the mobile broadcast spectrum will have the upper hand in negotiations,” he said.