Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/10/mob_tv_guidelines/
Reding still pushing Mob-TV
First legislation, then recommendation, now guideline
Posted in Mobile, 10th December 2008 15:21 GMT
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EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding hasn't given up pushing Mobile TV on anyone who'll listen, and has just published a set of guidelines in the hope that gentle persuasion will work where attempted legislation failed.
The EU still apparently believes that Mobile TV is going to be worth €7.8bn by 2013 as everyone leaps to watch TV on their mobile phones, citing the 5,000 punters signed up on Austria as a clear indication of things to come if only everyone in Europe would agree to abide by the newly-published recommendations.
Unfortunately only Austria, Finland, France and Germany have shown any interest in Mobile TV - and it's hard to imagine many regulators agreeing to the recommendations which include awarding technology-specific licences, penalising operators who fail to build enough coverage, and mandating cross-border service compatibility.
Broadcast mobile TV only makes sense if everyone is watching the same thing, at the same time, and they aren't at home (where a femtocell makes more sense) - something of a niche market considering the huge investment required to build in infrastructure with several times the number of transmitters required by the 3G networks already deployed.
The recommendations (pdf [1]) make some play of the fact that DVB-H has been endorsed by the EU as a mobile television standard, without mentioning the fact that the EU already recognises competing-technology MBMS as part of the GSM standard, and that most regulators want more technology-neutral spectrum licensing. In the UK Qualcomm owns a huge chunk of spectrum, and has no qualms about deploying another DVB-H competitor, MediaFLO, if the market wants it.
Ms Reding has tried to have DVB-H mandated across Europe, along with radio spectrum to service it, but local regulators have refused to play on the grounds that allocating spectrum to a service few people seem to want is insane - despite the argument that the same thing could have been said of GSM a couple of decades ago. ®