Archive for Mobile TV
Things can only get better - the market potential of mobile TV
Rating: the only way is up?
by Annie Turner
The predicted uptake of mobile TV hasn’t happened. Instead complaints remain about picture quality and sound, screen size and battery life. The jury is still out on how operators will bill for mobile TV services and whether or not customers will be prepared to pay. Uncertainty surrounds what kind of content will work, regulators are already threatening to impose strictures on this embryonic industry and there are potentially four broadcast standards competing against 3G as the means of delivery.
Indeed even the name mobile TV is a misnomer because it suggests transplanting ordinary TV on to your mobile phone whereas, as Paul Goode, vice president, development, with m:metrics which monitors how people use their mobile phones in a number of key markets, explained, “There’s streaming versus broadcast versus broadcast over 3G networks versus downloads – and different operators are going for different models.”
John Orlando, vice president of marketing with NMS Communications, says, “3G networks are designed for peer-to-peer communications, not broadcast. The economics are very tough. Lots of operators are holding off from getting involved or running trials of DVB-H for multimode handsets. 3G and broadcast can complement each other, they don’t necessarily have to compete.”
Whatever technology route they are taking, operators are struggling to establish the business case for mobile TV. Patrick Parodi, chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) says, “ “Ring tones are 100 times smaller than an MP3 [file], but people pay four times more for them. It’s all tied to personalisation and communication; regulators and others who are looking at the industry haven’t caught that extra value that is generated by mobile.”
