WHAT IS MOBILE TV?

Mobile TV means the streaming of television content to the mobile phone. As with streaming in the PC/Internet world, Mobile TV involves the simultaneous delivery and viewing of the content. Nothing is saved or downloaded on the phone. Mobile TV can be contrasted to a “download first and watch later” experience. As with email attachments, a downloaded file (which can even be a TV episode) resides on the mobile phone and can be viewed at will.

While there can be no single explanation for this failure to fire up the consuming public, the unspoken truth is that these services have failed mainly because they been generated to serve the interests of industry, and primarily network and handset vendors. Unfortunately, the user is low on the totem pole of interests. Although we all hold devices and constantly fiddle with their buttons, we refuse to adopt the data services offered. If services continue to primarily serve industry, and particularly the vendors rather than the user, expensive new networks will be launched, but used by few.
It can not be disputed that streaming services generally, and Mobile TV specifically have been the dandy of vendors for years. Attending Nokia developer events as early as 2002, one could watch Nokia keynote speakers demonstrate the live streaming of TV programs, and promoting it as the next big thing. At 3GSM, the industry’s main trade show, topics such as Push to Talk and Instant Messaging have received some attention, but Mobile TV has for years enjoyed unparallel exposure. In the high-tech industry, where Next Big Things enjoy a short shelf life, the on-going obsession with Mobile TV requires examination.
Digital terrestrial TV to mobile phones (mobile TV) started in Japan on April 1, 2006, and we expect mobile TV to grow rapidly into a major new media sector. Mobile TV allows to view television broadcasting always and everywhere. Mobile TV combines TV show broadcasts with news, information and commercial services via the internet in one handset, and therefore opens a new mobile commerce sector with many new opportunities. We expect the mobile TV sector to grow in to a vibrant new industry.This report explains the user experience and the most important technical details of mobile TV as it is in commercial service in Japan now, and reports on user experience and trends.Major global telecom carriers and equipment manufacturers from US, EU and Japan, investment banks, equipment manufacturers, service providers, University students and professors and many professionals from all over the world rely on our reports for their work. The Government of Finland has engaged us to advise on the research funding strategy for mobile services, and students and faculty of the Harvard Business School (HBS) are using our reports for research and teaching.
Market overviewWhile the legacy business model of TV has remained unchanged for years, the emergence of mobile TV, like IP TV in the fixed world, will push it to evolve into a more complex, but more globally profitable, value chain. A good understanding of the current market is necessary to facilitate the introduction of TV into the telco environment, and to ensure true complementarity between both worlds, from a technical, business, and functional point of view.
Why do vendors love Mobile TV so much?
The reason for the vendor obsession with Mobile TV is clear: vendors will inherently promote services which favor network and handset upgrades, and thus vendor sales. Mobile TV has been the main weapon that vendors have hyped and exploited to get operators to keep upgrading their networks.Here, too, the reason is clear: of all the rich-media services, streaming generally, and Mobile TV specifically, place the greatest demand on the radio network, the most precious network resource. By promoting Mobile TV, vendors are directly causing operators to upgrade or replace networks each time vendors produce a new radio technology.
Sce crippling carriers with outrageous costs for 3G (third generation) networks and spectrum, vendors have introduced new network technologies at a pace fierce and furious. HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) and DVBH (Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld) are the latest technologies hyped by vendors as crucial for the success of Mobile TV. MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service) and BCMCS (Broadcast and Multicast Services) are futuristic vendor technologies lurging in the shadows. All technologies mentioned above require new handset types and either new or upgraded networks.
The streaming of TV content is more demanding than other type of services for several reasons. As with PC-based streaming, viewing streamed content involves the simultaneous delivery and viewing of content. Content is not stored, so delivery and viewing occur at the same time. As a result, the radio link between the user and network must be sufficiently broad and consistent to enable the user to watch the content smoothly, without delays.
PC-based broadband Internet, which offers bandwidth far greater than can mobile networks, still delivers an inconsistent and poor streaming experience. Mobile networks offer far less bandwidth, and thus simply can not deliver acceptable Mobile TV to the masses. This fact, however, has not prevented the vendors from hyping each new technology as the potential solution. A vicious and costly circle.
MOBILE MEDIA ON PDA
Major TV networks want you to subscribe to their streaming TV service. Do you want to?
A recent survey done by Informa, Jupiter Research, Nokia showed that 20 percent of mobile phone subscribers would be willing to pay between $12 to $20 a month for subscribing to mobile broadcasting service
The same survey above showed that most mobile phone users have a strong preference for: news, sports, weather, music and music videos, would you like to take your TV with you wherever you go?
What is Mobile Content?
If you are a newbie, you may not know what Mobile content is. Well, you can have mobile content which is: music, music videos, movies, TV shows, sports, news, e-books, audio books, MP3 files, sports, weather, Internet radio show, RSS feeds, vidcasts formatted for your smart phone or mobile device. Instead of lugging around your: 56 inch plasma TV, hi-fi stereo system, a library of 1000 books, 1000 DVD movie collection, 1000 CD music collection everywhere you go, you can have it all delivered to your mobile device. Not to mention how expensive it would be to transport your media Center in an 18 tonne truck knowing how expensive the gas prices are these days.
Imagine being able to control your TV from a hotel room far away from your home; watch and surf channels on your mobile device
Watch cable TV on your Bluetooth enabled or ED-VO broadband enabled mobile device via streaming technology
Read RSS feeds listen to your favorite podcasts; watch her favorite Vidcasts on your mobile device
Listen to your favorite author read to you his latest bestseller on your Treo 700w smart phone, Pocket PC or PDA.
Here is the straight goods on the possibilities that you can tap into in terms of mobile media.
Orb.com
Orb networks is a free service that allows you to watch cable TV on you mobile device as long as you have Internet connection, a smart phone or mobile device and a desktop PC, you can download all your media content onto orb servers. You simply have to go to orb.com to open an account, install their software on your desktop computer. It will automatically organize and file all your media content. You can download from your desktop all of your favorite music videos, movies, pictures, videos, etc. Once your media that has been indexed, it can be uploaded to the Orb servers. To access your media, go to Orb.com and access “my orb account” from your mobile device’s web browser.Once you are in the my orb area, you can choose any item in the index and Orb networks will stream the mobile content from your home PC to your mobile device, no matter where you are as long as you have Internet access. If your desktop PC has a TV tuner card installed, Orb will even stream live TV from your PC to your mobile device.
As we speak, orb networks have done a complete revamp and are offering additional features. You’ll be able to also upload your: contacts, bookmarks or favorites. As well, orb.com will support: Internet TV and custom Internet radio shows and much more.
Tversity Media Server
Tversity offers the same features as orb networks mentioned earlier in the article. What’s great about Tversity is that it’s free. Tversity lets you create your personalized list of channels, music, pictures and more to you can access a media in your home network. If your home network is turned on, you have Internet connection; your mobile device can access the media content anywhere, anytime from any device.The Power of Streaming TV = Fun
For monthly substitution fee, mobile device users can watch over 50 channels via a WiFi or broadband enabled smart phone or mobile device. VDC (virtual digital cable) streams TV shows, movies using Windows media player onto your ED-VO broadband enabled a WiFi enabled smart phone.
Internet Protocol Television
Have You Ever Heard of Internet Protocol Television? VDC is a new player in the Internet protocol television IPTV arena. For only $12 a month, you can subscribe to over 25 channels. Some channels you’ll be interested to know are: the Discovery Channel, learning channel, animal planet, and the Associated Press global news wire. VDC is currently offering some free channels for you to evaluate the quality of the service on your Windows mobile device for smart phone. Their web site is: www.vdc.com.
PPCVidz offers two levels of service. For five dollars a month you can stream their collection of 1300 music videos, shortcuts, movie trailers, commercials or for $10 a month you can download files onto mobile device. PPCVidz also has live TV links to news and TV channels which you can view. 50 of the TV channels are broadcasted from the US. 30 of the TV channels are broadcast from the rest of the world. This is an excellent service for movie buffs. From All the Buzz, High Quality RSS Readers Are Finally HereBefore RSS readers or aggregators became popular you had to manually bookmark 30 to 200 web sites onto your Internet Explorer or Firefox browser. Then, every day you with have to tediously go to every single bookmark or web site one by one to check for any new updated information posted on these favorites.
There are reliable RSS readers for your desktop PCs and laptops, but not for Pocket PCs or smart phones. Now, Journal Bar offers a plug in to let you capture:News: headlines and in-depth articles from 29 countries and in 18 languages
Stocks: get up to 200 stock quotes, mutual funds, currencies updated every 10 minutes
Movie times of your local theatres
Movie reviews for the latest releases
TV listings for the main channels this evening
Sport scores from all your favorite teams
Horoscope, your daily astrological reading
Custom Links: Take your favorite bookmarks of your websites wherever you go
Weather, satellite and radar images of the largest US cities
If you purchase the double expansion pack, you can also add your favorite RSS feeds onto your mobile device. Journal Bar today plug in is only $30.00. For this price you get weather information, 3 rows of news headlines and over 200 stock quotes and movie reviews. Journal bar is not a standalone RSS aggregator. To access the RSS feed feature, the price is more. If you want to take this out for a test drive, you can check out the free trial at: Jornal Bar Free Trial. There is also a version for Blackberry RIM users.
Plusmo is a free service. This service lets you access thousands of channels on the Internet. Some channels include: top 25 itune hits, It also has the flexibility for you to add your own channel. Plusmo lets you: add any RSS feed or website to your smart phone, cell phone or PDA, add a bookmarklet to your browser, check out the closest star bucks, check out the closest gas station, read the latest movie reviews, check out the coolest photos, download popular blogs like Engadget as well as lets you read your friend’s MySpace Blog.
HOW MOBILE TV WORKS
Widespread mobile television has been a long time coming. TV-enabled cell phones have Korea since 2002. In that first incarnation, the TV signals were transmitted over a standard cellular network, meaning per-minute watching fees and unbelievable phone bills. In 2003, Samsung and Vodafone introduced phones in Korea and Japan that received local analog TV broadcasts for free. But the video was choppy, and it drained the phone battery.The real been available in “mobile TV revolution” is only beginning, as telecom companies release high-quality, DTV-enabled phones and simultaneously rush to build the broadcast networks to deliver the corresponding content. In this article, we’ll find out what types of mobile TV are in the works and take a look at some of the phones that receive the signals.
The Basic IdeaThe basic idea of the TV phone is pretty simple: It’s a cell phone that acts as a TV receiver. If you’ve read How Television Works, you know that TV signals are just radio signals. Cell phones pick up radio signals all the time — it’s what they do. In the case of TV phones, they have the ability to receive radio signals in the TV-allocated frequency bands in addition to the bands allocated for cell-phone voice data. For instance, a TV phone in the United States might tune in to the 2110-to-2170-MHz band for a conversation and the 54-to-60-MHz band to pick up TV channel 2.The basic idea of the TV phone is pretty simple: It’s a
Just like your home TV, a TV phone has the equipment to extract the audio and video content from radio signals and process them to display a TV show on its screen.
The concept is not earth-shattering, but delivering TV signals within a mobile framework poses some challenges. For one thing, streaming video requires fast transmission speeds. Previous “2G” GSM networks provided data-delivery speeds of 10 to 14 kilobits per second (Kbps), and “2.5G” networks offered 30 to 100 Kbps. At 10 Kbps, a TV show is really a slide show; and at 100 Kbps, it’s pretty choppy. There’s also the bandwidth issue. Television data takes up a lot more space than voice data, and delivering live TV to thousands of cell phones simultaneously can slow a network to a crawl. Finally, receiving, processing and displaying video content requires battery power, and cell phones don’t have much juice to spare.
But technology advances are beginning to make TV phones a viable luxury. Fast “3G” networks (which provide broadband Internet access to cell phones and other mobile devices) provide data-transfer rates of 144 Kbps to 2 megabits per second (Mbps). 3G multicasting technology saves bandwidth by allowing multiple subscribers to access a single broadcast stream (as opposed to unicasting, which is a one-to-one transmission). And companies are implementing power-saving transmission techniques like time slicing, which transmits data in spaced intervals so the receiver can turn off in between transmissions.
While you can subscribe to a TV service plan right now (such as MobiTV, Sprint TV or SmartVideo) if you have the right phone, the standards for mobile TV broadcast and delivery methods are still in their infancy. In the next section, we’ll take a look at the primary methods of mobile TV distribution
Mobile TV Broadcasts
There are a lot of broadcast and delivery methods in use or in development. You can broadcast live TV to cell phones via satellite, terrestrial towers or WiFi networks. Here’s a look at the basic techniques involved in each approach.WiFi/WiMAXThis broadcast method streams live TV signals via the Internet. A Web-enabled smartphone with data capabilities can pick up the stream from any WiFi hotspot or WiMAX coverage area.
This broadcast method streams live TV signals via the Internet. A Web-enabled
Sling Media’s Slingbox uses this approach with a slight twist. Instead of broadcasting the TV signals directly from the content provider, the Slingbox hardware “placeshifts” the TV signals delivered to your home TV, streaming them via your home Internet connection to a mobile receiver like a Web-enabled cell phone or laptop.TerrestrialLand-based broadcasting methods send out analog or digital TV signals over the air from terrestrial base stations. A phone with a TV antenna and an analog or digital TV tuner (receiver) can pick up the signals.
Land-based broadcasting methods send out analog or digital TV signals over the air from terrestrial base stations. A phone with a TV antenna and an analog or digital TV tuner (receiver) can pick up the signals.
There are a bunch of mobile-TV versions that utilize land broadcast, including analog broadcast TV, digital broadcast TV and 3G-network broadcasting. Standards like T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcast), MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services), MediaFLO (a proprietary Qualcomm technology) and DVB-H all utilize aspects of 3G technology.
DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld, is an adaptation of the DVB-Terrestrial standard used to broadcast over-the-air DTV to homes in Europe. DVB-H uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to make efficient use of available bandwidth. OFDM lets providers transmit more than one signal in one bandwidth space and spread data streams over multiple channels. It may sound like a clutter of data, but the system modulates different signals at different frequencies so the receiver can figure out which it’s supposed to listen to and which it should ignore and can put together related signals coming from different channels. In the DVB-H setup, a content provider sends live video and audio streams through an encoder (it’s typically H.264 encoding for video and AAC for audio), and the encoder forwards them to a 3G streaming server. The server sends the data to multiple broadcast towers that deliver the content to the coverage areas. The system uses the previously mentioned time slicing technique to reduce power requirements. The typical maximum transfer rate for a DVB-H system is 15 Mbps.SatelliteSome standards rely on satellite broadcasting to deliver live TV to cell phones. They can broadcast from satellite to phone, from satellite to base station to phone or use both methods simultaneously.
Some standards rely on satellite broadcasting to deliver live TV to cell phones. They can broadcast from satellite to phone, from satellite to base station to phone or use both methods simultaneously., or Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld, is an adaptation of the DVB-Terrestrial standard used to broadcast over-the-air
Two systems that employ this approach are MBSAT and S-DMB. In the S-DMB (Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) system, a content server sends the live TV feed through an encoder (typically MPEG-4 for video and AAC for audio) and transmits the data to an S-DMB satellite in the frequency range of 13.824 to 13.883 GHz. The geostationary satellite rebroadcasts the signals directly to terrestrial repeaters at 12.214 to 12.239 GHz and directly to cell phones on the S-band, 2.630 to 2.655 GHz. The terrestrial repeaters fill in the gaps where satellite signals get disrupted, like in a city surrounded by tall buildings or in the subway. The dual broadcasts are coordinated so that if a subscriber happens to be within range of the satellite and a tower at the same time, he’ll receive both broadcasts and end up with a stronger signal. An S-DMB system can reach data rates of 128 Kbps.
WiFi broadcasting is in use everywhere, and the S-DMB service has been up and running in Korea since mid-2005. DVB-H had its first commercial launch in June 2006 in Italy and is currently in trials around the world. In the next section, we’ll check out some of the cell phones that are compatible with mobile-TV systems.
Mobile TV Reception
When it comes to receiving TV signals, you’re dealing with a TV tuner, which is a type of radio receiver. There are both analog and digital tuners, and it’s the same technology that’s in a stationary TV set.
The basic premise underlying a TV tuner is that content providers transmit TV signals in certain radio-frequency bands for certain channels. Just like an AM/FM radio tuner, the TV tuner listens to a specific frequency to pick up the radio waves transmitted to the antenna for a specific channel. It then extracts the video and audio signals from those radio waves.
Photo courtesy Vodafone K.K.Toshiba V401T To turn those signals into a TV show, the tuner sends them to an audio/video (A/V) processor, which decodes and reformats the information so the electronics in the display can create a picture out of it. (See How Television Works, How DTV Works and How Graphics Cards Work for complete information on this process.)One analog-TV phone on the market is the Toshiba V401T. It picks up the same signals a rabbit-ear TV picks up, meaning watching TV on this phone doesn’t cost anything. The V401T has a built-in analog TV tuner and antenna, an A/V processor and a 2.2-inch, 320×240-pixel QVGA display. It can generate 30 frames per second, which is standard TV motion, and you can watch up to one hour of TV on a single battery charge. Phones that receive analog TV typically don’t offer as much viewing time as digital receivers partly because it takes more power to digitize the analog signals for the phone’s digital display.
Photo courtesy © Nokia, 2005Nokia N92 phone With the Nokia N92, you can watch up to four hours per charge. The N92 is a DVB-H receiver due for release by mid-2006. Under the hood is a TV antenna and DVB-H radio receiver — essentially a digital TV tuner that listens to the radio bands between 470 and 702 MHz. The phone’s audio/video processor displays 30 frames per second on a 2.8-inch QVGA screen with 16 million colors. One of the coolest features of Nokia’s DVB-H phone is the swivel screen, which you can adjust for portrait or landscape TV-viewing modes. There’s also an “Electronic Service Guide” that displays TV programming, among other things, and you can record up to 30 minutes of TV on the phone for later playback.
Photo courtesy Samsung ElectronicsSamsung SCH-B250 The latest satellite-TV phone on the market is the Samsung SCH-B250 (only in Korea as of March 2006). It has a built-in S-DMB receiver with antenna and a hi-res QVGA screen. The screen is oriented horizontally and swivels for switching between portrait and landscape modes while the phone is still upright. It has a video-out jack for sending S-DMB content to an external display, and you can watch up to three hours of TV on a full charge.
The current availability of mobile-TV handsets is fairly limited because the content-delivery systems aren’t deployed on a mass scale. But that’s likely to change within the next six to 18 months, and with increased content delivery will come increased functionality on the receiving end.
The Future of Mobile EntertainmentPhoto courtesy LG ElectronicsLG V9000 In early 2006, LG unveiled the V9000 phone, a T-DMB receiver with the added bonus of virtual surround sound. LG’s prototype SB130 is an S-DMB phone that can pause live TV like a DVR, recording up to an hour of programming using its onboard memory. Features like DVR functionality and surround sound point to the possibility that TV-enabled cell phones will become increasingly focused on providing a satisfying viewing experience, instead of just something to look at on the commuter train. Along this line, as mobile-TV content becomes more readily available, we’ll almost definitely see larger screens on TV phones. Some analysts are even predicting multiple phone displays — one for cell-phone and Web functions and one dedicated to streaming video. If the technology is to gain a real foothold, and if high-end features like HDTV reception are to be viable options, battery life will have to increase. High-end TV phones will also offer advertisers a whole new content platform. Companies are already talking about embedding Web links in mobile-TV programming so users can click their way to a product in the middle of a show. This would probably necessitate the dual-display feature in order to be effective. Even showing so much promise and industry enthusiasm, mobile TV has some obstacles to overcome both on the device side and the content side. To deliver the types and range of content that consumers really want, mobile-TV providers will have to license programming from the major TV networks. The licensing fees will probably end up raising the cost of any TV subscription service. Content providers will also face digital rights management (DRM) issues in delivering licensed content to users. They’ll have to develop DRM schemes that limit what users can do with the copyrighted TV programming that’s delivered to their cell phones. And if the uproar surrounding DTV, DVD, CD and MP3 DRM schemes is any indicator, it could get hairy. Still, you never know — maybe everybody will just get along when it comes to mobile TV.For more information on TV phones and related topics, check out the links on the next page.
ADVANTAGES
The Business Model AdvantageTDtv is designed to be a very low cost overlay network over existing spectrum. With a very low cost base station, and only a single base station controller required for up to 100 Node Bs, the low capital expenditure needed to deploy TDtv presents an attractive long-term business case. By using their own network, UMTS operators do not have to share revenues with the broadcasters.
The Performance AdvantageTDtv delivers similar spectral efficiency — 1 bit per second per hertz — and number of channels as other broadcasting technologies. With TDtv, UMTS operators can deliver up to 50 channels of TV for standard cell phone screens, or 15 higher quality QVGA channels, all in their existing 5MHz of unpaired 3G spectrum. And unlike current unicast mobile TV services that take additional network bandwidth for every subscriber using the service, TDtv leverages MBMS to allow an infinite number of customers to watch the same channel or use the same network bandwidth. Operators can also deliver digital audio or other IP data cast services to enhance their service offerings.
The Spectrum AdvantageOnly TDtv allows UMTS operators to utilize existing unused spectrum to address the Mobile TV market. TDtv operates in the universal unpaired 3G spectrum bands that are available across Europe and Asia at 1900MHz and 2010MHz, which better enables roaming and creates a larger ecosystem for infrastructure equipment and end user devices. And only TDtv allows operators to show regulators and investors that they are using and getting a return on their 3G spectrum assets. The solution will also be made available to operators in the other frequency bands that IPWireless supports globally, including the 2.5GHz band. For operators that have 10MHz of spectrum in any of these bands, the solution can deliver twice the number of channels.
The Control AdvantageCompetitive solutions mean that the UMTS operators will have to partner with broadcasters for the actual delivery of the content. This would result in deeply diminished revenues and loss of control of the end user experience. TDtv allows operators to keep full control of end user experience and maximize revenue.
The WCDMA Integration AdvantageBeing part of the 3GPP family of standards also means that TDtv has far better integration with WCDMA systems than other Mobile TV technologies. TDtv architecture is designed to seamlessly integrate with WCDMA on both the network and device side. This has cost, power, and size benefits over other broadcasting technologies. At the cell site, TDtv base stations can easily be co-sited. In the device, the technology can reuse the WCDMA RF chain. A TDtv chipset can be integrated into the WCDMA chipset, adding a very minimal cost to the device - estimated at less than $5 — and resulting in smaller devices than other Mobile TV technology devices. At the core network level, the solution integrates with WCDMA resulting in easier billing and other back office integration.
TheMobilityAdvantageMobility is an important factor for adoption of Mobile TV, and there are serious questions as to whether mobile broadcasting technologies can support vehicular mobility. As a 3GPP standard, TDtv inherently supports handover and high mobility. UMTS TD-CDMA has recently demonstrated its ability to support mobility at up to speeds of 200 kmph, and will support up to 400 kmph in 2006, ensuring uninterrupted programming even on the majority of Europe’s high-speed rail systems
DISADVANTAGES
NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN HAVING SUCH A SMALL SCREEN TV AND WOULDN’T EXPECT THE QUALITY OF PICTURE TO BE VERY GOOD. I THINK THE PHONE SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON CHEAPER PRICE FOR FM RADIO AND MP3 PLAYER
3. i think the service will be too expesive, and the mobile too, but in some years it will be something very common to see people in the metro watching tv on their mobile
Mobile phone frequencies are a licence to print money for the operators. So selling them for what the operators think they are worth is obviously reasonable. And, as has been pointed out by other, paying off the national debt will free some £2bn a year for spending increases or tax cuts. Tax cuts would be inflationary, so I’d like to see the money (the £2bn, not the £23bn) used for carefully targeted non-inflationary spending.