'The technology will enable advertisers to target a specific kind of advertising to a limited number of users in a way that a normal broadcast network wouldn't be able to do,' notes David Glidden, director of television strategy and mobile television for Harris Corp.
Using what you got
- John C. Tanner
For operators pondering mobile TV, the options for deploying services are increasingly splitting into two camps - those that require all-new infrastructure and spectrum, and those that utilize existing 3G networks.
Mobile TV technologies like DVB-H, DMB and MediaFLO have been touted as more efficient ways to deliver mobile broadcast video because of the impact of high-quality video on 3G bandwidth capacity. However, with operators looking for less expensive options than building a new network for mobile TV, solutions are emerging that leverage existing network infrastructure.
Ericsson, for example, offers a 'Unicast' solution that allows 3G networks to run streaming video at data throughput rates of 100 kbps. Alcatel is proposing a hybrid satellite/terrestrial solution similar to S-DMB, except that it uses the S-band on existing satellites rather than requiring a new one to be launched.
One of the more innovative solutions being touted by companies like NMS Communications is using the 3G-324M standard for circuit-switched video calls to deliver mobile TV. Hong Kong CSL, for example, is offering 25 channels of 64-kbps TV using a 3G-324M-based solution from NMS and Golden Dynamic.
The advantage of using 3G-324M, says Mike Katz, product marketing director of video products for NMS, is that it uses existing capacity and - crucially - doesn't require a new handset.
'Existing 3G handsets are already compatible with 3G-324M,' he says. 'Menus are created on the fly, so you don't need a new client on the handset, and you don't need a second antenna like you do with DVB-H.'
Just as crucial, he adds, is that 3G-324M supports interactivity, one of the key elements of any new TV service.
'Interactivity allows you to build a viewing community around programs, to include allowing people to upload their own videos,' says Katz. 'We're already seeing that with YouTube, YouSeeIt, RocketBoom - that long tail of content where people upload their own videos and viewers vote on the ones they love or hate.'
However, such mobile TV solutions tend to be unicast, which is bandwidth-intensive and faces serious scalability issues in the future as subscriber bases grow, says Nick Green, proposition manager for mobile TV and broadcast at LogicaCMG.
'That's damaging not only because it could deny mobile TV service to paying subscribers, but it also impacts other 3G services that may actually be higher-value services than mobile TV,' he says.
That's why the 3GPP is developing MBMS (multimedia broadcast multicast service), which will give W-CDMA networks armed with HSDPA the ability to run multicast video. Multicast is widely viewed as the most efficient way to run mobile TV in the long run, says Jon Hambidge, marketing VP for IPWireless, because it 'allows users to share bandwidth - say, a 300 kbps video stream - so that not every user is stealing bandwidth from each other the way unicast does'.
Jeff Belk, senior VP of Qualcomm, agrees that the future of mobile TV belongs to multicast. 'If you're in London, that Arsenal game is going to want to be watched by a lot of folks, so you'd better be multicasting that or it's an inefficient way of delivering it. However anyone does it, you still need to do it.'