Big Five Set Their Sights On Mobile TV

[Gregg Lengling]

September 12, 2004 - source: BWCS

TV broadcasts to the mobile phone moved a step nearer reality today when the big five handset vendors announced a co-operation deal to investigate mobile broadcast services. The usual gang of suspects: Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson will collaborate under the auspices of the Open Mobile Alliance. Together a collection of their boffins will endeavour to specify the enablers needed to deliver broadcast services to cellular handsets.

The most appealing broadcast service to the mobile handset is widely held to be TV, though the vendors say they will look at ways of mass broadcasting all manner of multimedia entertainment. Clearly the big guns of the industry hope that by agreeing on common standards and helping to drive the technology forward they will increase demand for new, larger, colour-screen phones in the future. As Steffen Ring of Motorola prosaically put: "Content is King, but Mobility is Queen. And we have come together to make this Royal Marriage happen." Still, let's hope it faces a brighter future than most recent Royal marriages.

Eschewing metaphors in favour of banging his own company's drum, Masaaki Ohara, a senior manager at NEC, used the occasion of the OMA announcement to proclaim that his company had developed "the world"s first working prototype of a mobile phone capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasting last year." Ohara went on, "driving Mobile Broadcast is essential for enabling end-users to enjoy various attractive services through our mobile phones."

As usual, Korea and Japan are already ahead in this field, with mobile TV phone services currently being introduced into both markets. The vendors gathered at the OMA believe that services and suitable handsets will not be launched in Europe until the end of next year.