Mobile TV To Be Big In Next Two Years
Television delivered via mobile phones will take a further two years to develop into a heavyweight consumer product claims the head of mobile manufacturer Sony Ericsson.
Speaking to the Reuters news agency, Sony Ericsson president Miles Flint said that uncertainty over technological standards could hold back development of the service, stating: “I don’t think that it is going to be a real volume market in 2006. It is certainly on the horizon.”
When asked when the “tipping point” would be reached, Flint said he expected consumers to adopt the technology en masse in 2007 or 2008.
The deployment of mobile TV in Britain will receive a boost later this year, as BT rolls out its Movio service – a wholesale product for mobile service providers, broadcasting simulcasts of regular TV stations via shared spectrum on the DAB radio network (see ‘Real’ Mobile TV System To Launch Within Four Months).
Other technology which could be used to deliver TV signals to mobile handsets includes DVB-H, which broadcasts directly to handsets from TV masts, and MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), which uses mobile networks to deliver the signals.
Earlier this year some of the largest companies in the telecoms and broadcast sectors joined together to form the Mobile DTV alliance, promoting DVB-H technology and seeking to foster growth in the fledgling technology (see Mobile TV Group Formed To Drive Standards).
Questioned over which technology would emerge as the dominant means of TV delivery, Flint explained: “We are pretty agnostic. We can implement both in our phones. There is not a big difference.”
Recent research has shown increasing interest in mobile TV from consumers, with results from a trial of the technology in Oxford revealing 83% satisfaction with the end-to-end service.
According to the trial’s operators, Arqiva and O2, 375 triallists chose to access television on their mobiles for an average of 23 minutes per session, with one to two sessions per day (see UK Consumers Keen For Mobile TV).
Sony Ericsson: www.sonyericsson.com