Is the EU Ready for a Single Mobile TV Standard?
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DVB-H is one step closer to becoming the standard for mobile TV in the European Union (EU).
Or is it? |
While the European Commission demonstrated its support late last year for a single mobile TV standard when it encouraged the inclusion of DVB-H in a set of standards that are endorsed for use in the EU, this does not guarantee that the European Commission will be mandating adoption of the technology as the sole mobile TV standard for the EU. But it does increase the likelihood of it happening.
Not everyone is happy with this latest development, says Peter MacAvock, executive director of the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB), which developed DVB-H, a physical layer specification designed to enable the delivery of IP-encapsulated data over terrestrial networks.
“There is some opposition amongst a number of the member states in the European community to this move,” MacAvock says. “Some administrations feel that such mandation—indeed such inclusion—of a standard in that list of standards for mobile television is going beyond the remit of a regulatory body.”
However, adoption of a single standard may be a key factor in ensuring the success of mobile TV in the EU.
“The major interest in having a single set of standards is to ensure that manufacturers will make devices,” says MacAvock. “It’s unrealistic to expect Nokia or Motorola or any of these large handset vendors to manufacture devices for a market of anything less than some quantities of millions. At the outset, mobile television is going to be stifled if you have to have a different phone for France or Germany or Spain because the economics just don’t add up. It just doesn’t make sense to have to manufacture a specific phone for a specific market.”
Given the nature of the technology, it would seem natural that another important reason for harmonizing mobile TV standards across geographic boundaries would be to provide consistent programming from one region to the next. This would allow users with mobile TV handsets to access the same content no matter where they may be located.
According to MacAvock, this is a problematic concept. He points out that most of the popular programming in the EU is designed to appeal to local tastes. “There is some question as to the validity of having a discussion about a pan-European technology if the content itself is going to be reasonably local… It’s not as easy as saying you should have a single telephony standard across all of Europe because that would facilitate roaming. The concept of roaming needs to be slightly different within the context of mobile television.”
Instead, mobile TV will probably create the need for generic, pan-European programming such as news and sports content that could appeal to many different types of viewers. “I think there will be a combination of services that is going to be offered, some of which at the outset would be generic and some of which would be more specific to a given market,” says MacAvock.
But in order to give roaming mobile TV users this pan-European programming experience, providers will have to overcome the issue of frequency availability.
“The single biggest problem that we have in Europe is that of frequency availability. It’s the case with many developed markets. That frequency availability problem is one that is retarding in general the deployment of mobile television. If you were to examine markets in which frequency availability is not a problem—and I’m thinking particularly of the Asian markets—then there is no doubt it’s DVB-H all the way,” MacAvock says.
To deal with this problem, DVB developed DVB-SH, which is designed to exploit the higher frequency and less congested S-band. DVB-SH is a hybrid satellite and terrestrial technology that uses satellite signals to deliver services along with terrestrial gap fillers for areas in which the reception of satellite signals isn’t possible.
“When we were developing DVB-SH, we recognized there were going to be significant issues for propagation at that frequency because it’s not an easy spectrum. To be honest, if you were trying to broadcast, you wouldn’t use that spectrum under normal sets of circumstances,” MacAvock says. “However, because of the frequency availability issue and the earning potential of mobile television, a number of technology providers and operators have worked hard to design a satellite. It is expected to be ready for launch mid-2009.”
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