Momentum is gaining to establish the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) standard as the broadcast mobile TV technology of choice in Europe, following threats last month of possible regulation by the European Commission.
Handset manufacturing rivals Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have agreed to work together to ensure the interoperability of their mobile TV handsets for operators deploying multivendor mobile TV services, the companies said Monday.
The goal is to ensure that their handsets function on DVB-H networks and meet a set of interoperability specifications established by the Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum, according to a Nokia spokeswoman.
Nokia is also a member of a group that last week threw its support behind a new forum specification, called the Open Mobile Alliance Mobile Broadcast Services Enabler Suite (OMA BCAST). The specification aims to simplify the deployment of broadcast mobile TV services based on the DVB-H standard in particular.
Among the features of the OMA BCAST specification are an enhanced program guide and support for content protection using either SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card or DRM (digital rights management) technology.
Members of the group supporting OMA BCAST include equipment manufacturers Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, NXP Semiconductors and ZTE Corp., as well as mobile operators Telefónica O2 Europe, T-Mobile International AG & Co. KG and Vodafone Group PLC.
On Friday, rival German mobile phone operators O2 (Germany) GmbH & Co. OHG, T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH and Vodafone D2 GmbH filed a request with the country’s antitrust agency to form a consortium to jointly secure broadcast licenses in the 16 German states, and build and operate broadcast mobile TV infrastructure nationwide. The request is one of the first by European operators to share broadcast mobile TV systems.
German states have already issued mobile TV licenses for services based on the rival DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) standard. While spectrum is available for DMB, the German government is working on freeing up spectrum for DVB-H. Spectrum for DVB-H is expected to be available in Germany, possibly by the end of the year. It’s already available in other countries.
O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone, like many other large mobile phone operators across Europe, have opted instead for DVB-H, which, among other things, supports far more TV channels.
At the Cebit trade show last month in Hanover, Germany, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding warned that she had the powers to impose a standard and made it clear which of the competing broadcast mobile TV standards she prefers: DVB-H. The Commissioner referred to DVB-H, which was developed largely by European manufacturers and has already been approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), as an “open standard” and a “European standard” and said that the sooner everyone agreed to support it, the better.
The worldwide market for broadcast mobile TV services and products is estimated to grow from more than €2 billion (US$2.7 billion) in 2006 to €11.4 billion by 2009, according to Reding.
