Aloha Will Explore Using 700 MHz Spectrum for TV on Cellphones
Aloha Partners, the largest holder of 700 MHz licenses in the U.S., said it will join with satellite operator SES Americom to test-market mobile TV in Las Vegas in the fall, through a new subsidiary, Hwire, using the digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) platform. Aloha has a test of wireless broadband on 700 MHz in Phoenix. CEO Charles Townsend told us Mon. the Aloha will look at both tests at year-end and decide which course to pursue.
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Privately held Aloha was the dominant bidder in 2 FCC auctions selling encumbered 700 MHz spectrum in 2001 and 2003. The company owns licenses for 12 MHz of spectrum covering 60% of the U.S. -- including the top 10 markets and 84% of the population in the top 40 markets using TV channels 54 and 59.
The announcement puts Hiwire in direct competition with Qualcomm’s MediaFLO service and Crown Castle’s Modeo offering. Qualcomm initially is targeting CDMA operators but plans to expand to a similar DVB-H platform to target GSM operators as well. Like Aloha, it uses 700 MHz spectrum, through a nationwide 6 MHz license in TV channel 55. Crown Castle’s offering, like Aloha’s, is targeted to DVB-H, which is dominant in Europe -- but uses 1.6 GHz spectrum, which can’t penetrate walls and other obstructions like 700 MHz spectrum.
“Consumer research shows that the typical viewer watches about 15 live TV channels,” Townsend said. “The trouble is that not everyone watches the same 15 channels. In order to address all the consumer needs, you need to offer many more high-resolution live channels. With 12 MHz of capacity, Hiwire can give everybody what they want.”
Townsend predicted that ultimately carriers will have to decide which company to work with in rolling out mobile TV. “You have to have the carriers as your partners,” he said. “The most likely users are cellphone users. You have got to go to the cellphone companies and have them distribute the phones with the TV” technology.
Townsend predicted that services like Verizon Wireless’s VCast video offering are just a phase, and carriers are likely to offer TV to cellphones using frequencies other than the those they own, which they can then use to offer wireless broadband.
TV “chews up a ton of spectrum,” Townsend said. “They literally are taking up 3 or 4 voice channels to distribute that to you and if it’s live it’s coming in a continuous stream… If someone is sitting next to you they can’t use the same 4 channels so they have to chew up 4 more channels.”
Analyst Tim Scannell of Shoreline Research said it’s unclear whether the latest offering can crack the mobile TV market. “The announcement by Aloha is just one more indication that mobile programming and distribution is evolving to become a legitimate broadcast medium -- or at least that’s the plan that many companies hope will unfold. Eventually, consumers will subscribe to programming much like they now do with cable TV -- signing up, for example, for an all-sports network. At this point, I would say that satellite-based systems may have an edge because of the number of channel pipelines offered and the inherent capabilities of satellites.”
“The marriage of wireless telephone and wireless television has the potential to change the wireless world,” said analyst Jeff Kagan. “It has to be priced right, and they have to provide the right content, but if they can hit it on the nose, this has huge potential.”