Could Mobile TV Take Off in 2008?

While mobile television has failed to date to take off for many mobile operators, signs point to that changing in 2008. It was certainly a standout theme at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this spring.

"For many operators, early mobile TV services have not had much success so far and are still a small niche," says Vincent Poulbere, principal analyst at Ovum Ltd. "Improving the video usage experience on mobiles is key to driving the adoption of mobile multimedia services in the mass market — and hence, it is key to the future of this industry," he goes on to say. "As of early 2008, mobile TV is a reality worldwide."

As an example, Australian incumbent Telstra at MWC reported encouraging progress, noting that a full 5 percent of its HSPDA "Next G" customers subscribe to its Foxtel Mobile services. And Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said during a MWC keynote that there are 170 mobile TV offerings around the globe, mostly over cellular (with Ericsson supplying 60 of these). Broadcast is on the rise, though; at the show, Ericsson announced it would start the first commercial rollouts of MBMS — a mobile broadcast technology — in the next 12 months. "The evolution of mobile TV will require a broadcast component," says Poulbere.

Nokia’s new N96 has built-in broadcast TV reception.

"The DVB-H standard is open and supported by an industry-wide consortium, which in turn should help drive the number of mobile TV users to nearly double each year until 2012," says Clint Wheelock, vice president and chief research officer for ABI Research. "Low power solutions that combine superior radio performance and support DVB-H, in addition to the large footprint of existing DVB-T deployments, will be critical in adopting these services."

Indeed, broadcast — as opposed to video over 3G — was front and center at MWC. Orange and T-Mobile UK announced they intend jointly to pilot a new mobile TV and multimedia broadcast service in London using NextWave Wireless Inc.’s MBMS-based TDtv solution. The six-month pilot, scheduled for the second half of 2008, will be targeted at people living or working in West London and will demonstrate how the cost of providing high-quality, mass-market mobile TV and multimedia broadcast services can be reduced significantly when mobile operators share widely available unpaired 3G spectrum and a standards-based TDtv broadcast network. It also will showcase an innovative consortium model that easily can be replicated by mobile operators in more than 50 other countries — including the United States — where unpaired 3G spectrum is available.

"It is interesting to note that the two operators will share the TDtv infrastructure and also the UMTS TDD frequencies in order to make a better business case thanks to increased capacity and lower rollout costs," says Poulbere.

"We are committed to widening the appeal of our Mobile TV offering, from the point of view [of] content and user experience," says T-Mobile UK Technical Director Emin Gurdenli. "On a technical level, our involvement with this TDtv pilot is intended to raise awareness of the potential of broadcast mobile TV and help stimulate the development of an industry-wide ecosystem in which operators, handset manufacturers and content providers collaborate to realize a robust commercial proposition. TDtv uses part of the licensed 3G spectrum, which is unused at the moment and is a technology that can scale to support high simultaneous usage levels without any degradation in quality. This solution would be ideal for broadcasting live, large sporting events such as the 2012 Olympic Games to high population densities."

Alcatel-Lucent said that its DVB-SH, hybrid satellite/terrestrial solution for broadcasting soon will launch commercially ICO Global Communications Holdings Ltd., a satellite provider in the United States, to pump video to large-screen endpoints in vehicles. The vendor said it is in trials with other operators.

Several players announced solutions that blend together unicast and broadcast, for instance Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent or Streamezzo," says Poulbere. "This combines [cellular and broadcast] in the same offering. [These] capabilities are required to provide interactive services onto broadcast channels."

Devices are another part of the picture. Nokia took the wraps off the N96 device, with integrated DVB-H reception. Available in the third quarter, the N96 slider has a five-megapixel camera, two LEDs, a 2.8-inch display, Wi-Fi and support for HSPDA in the U.S.-friendly 90MHz and 2100MHz bands — all for around $800.

PacketVideo Corp. was on hand, showing its new pocket-sized mobile broadcast receiver that turns Wi-Fi-enabled phones and personal media players into mobile TVs. The receiver decodes a digital TV signal and repurposes it for use on the phone, sending it via a wireless signal, such as Wi-Fi, to a playback device. The receiver uses specific, patented protocols to ensure optimum rendering of the TV signal on the playback device, and provides secure access to premium channels. This allows mobile subscribers to upgrade to advanced mobile TV services without changing their current handsets. The mobile broadcast receiver will be available in versions for all major mobile broadcast standards, including DVB-H, MediaFLO and TDtv as well as for WiMAX. The device also can be customized with the operator’s badge or branding for the retail market.

Broadcom Corp. announced a mobile TV receiver to support both DVB-T and DVB-H. Consumer electronics manufacturers can use Broadcom’s new solutions to "continue to move the handset to the center of the personal communications and entertainment experience," the company said in a statement.

Svanberg noted in his address that television is changing from a broadcast to a more personalized TV experience with the buildout of faster networks. To showcase the potential of that personalization, Nielsen Mobile worked with XPLANE, a global consulting and design firm, on a short animated mobile video to illustrate the potential of mobile marketing and the effectiveness of reaching target audiences through that emerging channel.

"Advertising has been a key theme for the MWC this year," says Poulbere. "It is naturally becoming a central concern for players involved in developing mobile TV and video services, which see an opportunity to develop new ad-funded business models." As an example, shortly before MWC, Vodafone Italy announced an ad-driven offer based on video ad and content management from QuickPlay and a mobile advertising platform from Amobee.

"On the other hand, mobile advertising in live channel broadcasting has not seen much progress yet," Poulbere says, "with only some point solutions available, such as banners and interactive services from Streamezzo and local ad insertion in DVB-H from UD Cast."

If MWC is any indication, mobile video will be a hot topic for the year. "We are rapidly moving into a new and exciting wireless era, the era of mobile multimedia where your favorite movies, television shows and music will be accessible everywhere you go, in the palm of your hand," says Allen Salmasi, CEO of NextWave Wireless.

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