Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 19, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
At a CeBIT event, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding expressed disappointment at the progress achieved so far in mobile TV. “To take full advantage of this market and export a European model for mobile television, as we did with mobile phones using the GSM standard, the sector and the member states must work together more closely to develop a common concept, compare technologies, examine possible legal obstacles, make frequencies available throughout Europe and jointly find the best way to work toward rapid and broad acceptance of mobile television among Europeans, if possible on the basis of a single standard”, Reding explained. It was now time to design the new model for mobile television that is necessary for its economic success in Europe. “Availability of services anytime and anywhere, attractive commercial offerings, interoperability of devices, availability of frequencies, ‘lean’ regulations on licences, all these are the basic prerequisites for rising demand for mobile television in Europe”, Reding stated.
The EU Commissioner sees mobile television, with an estimated global market volume of 11.4 billion euros by 2009, as an opportunity for Europe to combine its strengths in mobile communications with the richness and diversity of its audiovisual sector.
In July 2006, the Commission had encouraged the formation of the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC). This first “convergence forum” includes manufacturers of telecommunications hardware, players from the software and broadcasting industry, and content providers. Its work and the discussions with the member states are feeding into the preparation of a Commission communication on mobile television that is expected in mid-2007. However, the discussions within the EMBC have not yet produced any concrete progress. Although all participants in the EMBC acknowledge that a single standard for mobile broadcasting throughout Europe would bring considerable economies of scale, at the same time they emphasise that there would be little or no prospect of the industry agreeing on a single standard. “I would have expected more proposed solutions”, Viviane Reding said in Hanover.
Interoperability between mobile TV platforms and mobile TV-capable devices is the basic prerequisite for broad acceptance among European consumers. The Commission has already invested around 40 million euros in research in the field of mobile television and supported the development of open digital television standards (DVB), which also include mobile broadcasting. It is largely undisputed that the business model for mobile television will combine technologies from telecommunications such as 3G and from broadcasting such as DVB-H. Only broadcasting technologies have the capacity required to allow mobile TV consumption on a large scale. “European industry has already developed successful standards in the past, and I am convinced that mobile TV services based on DVB-H can provide the economies of scale needed for acceptance throughout Europe and the world”, Reding continued.
Available frequencies were also required for the development and broad acceptance of mobile television, and a “flourishing mobile TV market” could develop only if legal obstacles were first identified and removed.
In the Commission’s view, the trials carried out recently in Europe show strong consumer interest in mobile television. These include the trial carried out in Germany during the 2006 Football World Cup and the launch of the first commercial services in member states such as Italy and Finland. Other competing economic regions had already recognised the potential. China, for example, was actively working on preparations for a mobile TV trial for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
