Digital Mobile TV From China

Mobile Television News

Until the mobile broadcasting technology appeared three years ago, cellphone operators had to send video as prepackaged clips to individual customers over high-speed, third-generation phone networks. That proved costly to both operators and viewers, and the large video packets slowed other voice and data traffic on those networks. Direct mobile broadcasting does not tax the so-called 3G networks.

Japan is the leader in direct mobile television, with 20 million cellphones equipped with TV receivers, followed by South Korea with 8.2 million, according to In-Stat, a research and consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. In-Stat estimated that there were 29.7 million mobile TV viewers worldwide at the end of 2007. That is expected to almost double, to 56.9 million, at the end of 2008, driven by growth in Japan.

Italy has been an early leader in Europe, with service beginning in 2006. The largest mobile TV broadcaster on the Continent is 3 Italia, a cellular operator owned by Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong, with 800,000 customers, about 10 percent of its total phone clients. The million Italian viewers watch up to a dozen channels.

For some operators, mobile TV remains a niche service. In the United States, Verizon Wireless has offered mobile TV since March 2007, but In-Stat estimated that it had fewer than 100,000 paying viewers.

Definition of Mobile TV

Mobile TV is television service delivered to subscribers via mobile telecommunications networks, such as the mobile phone carriers. In 2005, South Korea became the first country in the world to have mobile TV when it started satellite DMB (S-DMB) and terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) service on May 1 and December 1, respectively. Today, South Korea and Japan are at the forefront of this developing sector[1].Mobile TV services have been launched by the operator CSL in Hong Kong in March 2006 on the 3G network. [2] BT in the United Kingdom was the among the first companies outside South Korea to launch Mobile TV in September 2006, although the service was abandoned less than a year later[3]. The same happened to "MFD Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland", who launched their DMB-based service June 2006 in Germany, and stopped it in April 2008[4]. Also in June 2006, mobile operator 3 in Italy (part of Hutchison Whampoa) launched their mobile TV service, but opposed to their counterpart in Germany this was based on DVB-H[5]. Sprint started offering the service in February 2006 and was the first US carrier to offer the service. In the US Verizon Wireless and more recently AT&T are offering the service.

Mobile TV involves bringing TV services to the mobile phones. It combines the services of a mobile phone with television content and represents a logical step both for consumers and operators and content providers. Mobile TV over cellular networks allows viewers to enjoy personalized, interactive TV with content specifically adapted to the mobile medium. The services and viewing experience of mobile TV over cellular networks differs in a variety of ways from traditional TV viewing. In addition to mobility, mobile TV delivers a variety of services including video-on-demand, traditional/linear and live TV programs. Another exciting opportunity for users is Mobile TV pod casts, where content is delivered to a user’s mobile on demand or by subscriptions. Stored locally on the handset, this content can then be viewed even when there’s no network connection. And a service provider can schedule the delivery to “off-peak” hours, for example during the night.

Technically, there are currently two main ways of delivering mobile TV. The first is via a two-way cellular network and the second is through a one-way dedicated broadcast network. These include digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H), digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), TDtv (based on TD-CDMA technology from [IPWireless]), 1seg (based on Japan's ISDB-T), DAB and MediaFLO. None is ideal as all have drawbacks of one kind or another: spectral frequencies used or needed, signal strength required, new antennas and towers, network capacity required, or business model.

Using the existing 3G (WCDMA/HSPA) network is the fastest and easiest way to get Mobile TV off the ground. It allows for the quick start an operator needs to grab the initiative and develop relationships with both customers and content providers. There is more than enough capacity in 3G networks to scale up for a mass market of Mobile TV services, particularly if an operator has HSPA as this will provide for several steps of capacity increases. And MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), which means broadcast over 3G networks, will soon allow a traffic channel to be shared by all the users that are simultaneously watching the same program in the same area. MBMS complements HSPA to support higher loads in dense areas and ensure efficient network utilization.

However out of the 120 plus commercially launched mobile TV services worldwide, more than 90% of these are based on existing two-way cellular networks, using unicast. With unicast, content is transmitted separately from a single source to a single destination, like from a server to a mobile handset. And that is how each individual can get the content they want. With broadcast, the same content is delivered to a very large number of mobile handsets in a single transmission.

By using a combination of unicast and broadcast, network capacity and investments can be optimized. Broadcast bearers can be used for the most popular programs, and an unlimited number of additional programs and on-demand content can continue to be delivered efficiently using unicast. In the combined unicast–broadcast scenario, the user will not notice any difference in how content is delivered. The user will have a single user interface (TV client) in the terminal to access all content. This combination unicast and broadcast provides the best way to meet personalization and mass market.

In South Korea, mobile TV is largely divided into satellite DMB (S-DMB) and terrestrial DMB (T-DMB). Although S-DMB initially had more content, T-DMB has gained much wider popularity because it is free and included as a feature in most mobile handsets sold in the country today.

Mobile TV standards

European Union feels it's urgent to choose a single standard for mobile TV in European nations. EU seems determined to pick one standard by 2008, and indications are that EU is inclined to back Nokia-led DVB-H, while European broadcasters count on market mechanism.

GPRS
3G
DVB-H/SH
S-DMB (Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcast) - South Korea, Japan
CMMB (China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting) - China
MediaFLO - launched in US, trialled in UK and Germany
ISDB-T (Integrated Service Digital Broadcasting) - Japan and Brazil
1seg (One Segment) - Mobile TV system on ISDB-T
T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Mulitmedia Broadcast) - South Korea, Germany
DAB-IP (Digital Audio Broadcast) - UK

types of Mobile TV

1seg
BCAST - Mobile Broadcast Service via cellular network from Open Mobile Alliance(OMA)
DVB-SH
Handheld projector
IP TV
MediaFLO
Mobile DTV Alliance - marketing organization
3 mobile tv (UK)
MobiTV
Sky Mobile TV
Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) via the GSM and UMTS cellular networks
Nunet
OneTV
Ortiva Wireless Inc.