Mobile TV, coming to a cell phone near you, hopes the Commission

The European Commission published its strategy for promoting the adoption of mobile television across Europe, setting out requirements for standards, spectrum allocation and regulation to encourage take-up. In particular it wants to encourage the use of DVB-H as the single European standard for mobile TV.

This follows the failure of moves to get the industry to work together across Europe. In March 2006 the Commission encouraged the setting up of the industry-led European Mobile Broadcasting Council. However, the Council failed to agree, forcing the Commission to intervene, and to support the take-up of mobile TV.

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the Information Society and Media said, “We can either take the lead globally, as we did for mobile telephony based on the GSM standard developed by the European industry, or allow other regions take the lion’s share of the promising mobile TV market. “Wait-and-see” is not an option. The time has come for Europe's industry and governments to switch on to mobile TV."

To date, the introduction and take-up of mobile TV in Europe has been slow while competitors have made significant progress. The mobile TV penetration rate in South Korea, Asia’s most developed mobile TV market, is close to 10 percent, while in Italy, the EU's most advanced market, is still less than 1 percent.

The Commission says mobile TV could create a market of up to Euro 20 billion by 2011, reaching some 500 million customers worldwide. As such it views its “Communication on Strengthening the Internal Market for Mobile TV” as crucial to create jobs and business opportunities for content creators, service providers and hardware manufacturers, and to bring new value-added services to citizens.

Three factors for success

The report identifies three factors for success:

Standards/interoperability. The Commission says it will promote consensus around a common standard, DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, the current front runner with successful commercial launches and trials in 18 European countries, and increasingly worldwide. It intends to include DVB-H in the EU's official list of standards  and thereby legally encourage its use in all 27 Member States.

Spectrum. The Commission wants to ensure that the switch-off of traditional analogue to signals opens up spectrum for mobile TV, along with other digital broadcasting services. It called on Member States to make spectrum available for mobile broadcasting as quickly as possible, including in the UHF band (470-862 MHz) as it becomes available. The Commission also initiated the opening to mobile TV of the L-band frequency (1452-1492 MHz) as a fallback solution.

Regulation

National approaches to regulating mobile TV vary considerably, generating uncertainty. The Commission intends to organise an exchange of best practice and provide guidance for a coherent framework for mobile TV authorisation regimes.

2008 is considered a crucial year for mobile TV take-up in the EU due to important sports events, such as the European Football Championship and the Summer Olympic Games, which will provide a unique opportunity for pushing new services.