MPEG-4

Coding Technologies, a provider of audio compression technology for digital broadcasting, mobile music and the Internet, has announced that Motorola has entered into a patent license agreement with the company. Coding
Technologies is the developer of the MPEG-4 aacPlus audio codec.
Motorola joins a number of the world's wireless device
manufacturers, including Nokia, SonyEricsson and LG as a licensee of aacPlus.

Spanish Mobile TV

In an attempt to speed up the launch of DVB-H mobile TV, the Ministry of Industry has opened public consultations with all key players involved in the market up to next April 26 aimed at laying the groundwork for the launch of the service by year end.

BBC launches mobile TV trial

The BBC has revealed plans to offer a range of TV and radio networks to 3G mobile phones. The trial, scheduled to run for up to 12 months, will run on the Orange, Vodafone and 3 mobile networks. Significantly O2, which has been involved in a series of DVB-H mobile TV trials, is not included in the trial.

Channels featured will be BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three, though some sports content will not be included. Eight radio stations will also be included: Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 6 Music, BBC 7 and Asian Network. Missing is the BBC’s news and sports station Radio 5 Live. The trial will get underway within a month.

Channels including Sky News and Sky Sports News are already streamed live on UK 3G networks. (JC)

WIMAX HDTV MOBILE TV JRC and Runcom Completed the Development of Mobile WiMAX Base Station - Assodigitale - Associazione Italiana Operatori Industria

"Running a High Definition TV application over a Mobile WiMAX Network enabled us to demonstrate the fantastic potential of Mobile WiMAX as a Broadband Access Technology" said Israel Koffman, Runcom's VP of Marketing; "The collaboration with a leading company in radio technology such as JRC enabled the team to bring OFDMA technology to perform one of its highest records."

Alvarion Partners with NDS and MobiTV to Demo Mobile Wimax TV

"Our companies are cooperating in order to demonstrate mobile TV over WiMAX anytime, anywhere and on any device," said Joseph Deutsch, VP Product Marketing, NDS. "Alvarion's 4Motion solution, together with our core VideoGuard CA and DRM solution, supports the full range of video services, giving carriers the assurance that only paying subscribers gain access to content while offering various business models to consumers and increasing average revenues per user (ARPU)."

Spectrum Key To The Development Of Mobile TV In Europe

Europe : Mobile network operators in Europe called for more spectrum to be made available for the provision of mobile television, echoing one of the findings in the final report of the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC), an initiative of the European Commission. While the EMBC report highlights the great variety of technical solutions to the provision of mobile broadcast services, such as 3G network-based video streaming, MBMS and DVB-H, DMB and satellite broadcast solutions, it notes that a lack of spectrum could limit the development of some of the new mobile TV platforms available.

Mobile TV warned to standardise

EC telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said that if the industry did not agree on one, she would do it for them.

Ms Reding warned that Europe risked losing a chance to be a global player in the burgeoning mobile TV market.

She made her comments during a speech to delegates at the Cebit technology fair in Hanover, Germany.

Large-scale trials of TV on mobile handsets are already happening across the world as phone firms try to find out if consumers want to watch programmes on the go.

This comes as a surprise to no one!

"Audiovisual without Frontiers" Directive

The Commission unveiled on 9 March a consolidated text of the modernised "Television without Frontiers" Directive. After a first reading in the European Parliament and the Council, there is now broad agreement with the Commission about the future legal framework for Europe's audiovisual sector. The new rules, which have been called for especially by the European Parliament, are a response to technological developments and create a new level-playing field in Europe for emerging audiovisual media services (video on demand, mobile TV, audiovisual services on digital TV). European TV- and filmmakers will be given more flexibility to produce digital content which they can then make freely available to consumers thanks to advertising. The new Directive reaffirms the pillars of Europe's audiovisual model, which are cultural diversity, protection of minors, consumer protection, media pluralism, and the fight against racial and religious hatred,. The Commission also proposes to ensure the independence of national media regulators. The consolidated text of the new Directive will now go into a second reading by the European Parliament and Council.

No hurry on mobile TV, says Telstra (, MARCH 07, 2007)

TELSTRA says it is no hurry to jump on the mobile television bandwagon just yet, as it adopts a wait-and-see stance to the new broadcasting technology.

The standard known as digital video broadcasting handheld (DVB-H) has been tested in a number of markets around the world - including Australia - with commercial services recently launched in Albania, Italy and Vietnam.

Dump the TV set, watch the web instead - tech - 03 March 2007 - New Scientist Tech

WATCHING programmes on your television set is so last century.

Television studios are increasingly using the net to transmit their programmes to viewers on demand.

While this is fine when a relatively small number of people are downloading files at different times, if the internet were to transmit live television broadcasts to millions of viewers simultaneously, the sudden demand for bandwidth could create a huge bottleneck.

Now a British company has developed a way to send live video to millions of computers at once without overloading the web. The system, called the Live Delivery Network, will be launched next month by London-based firm Skinkers. It uses Pastry, a peer-to-peer distribution tool developed by Microsoft to transmit the broadcasts. This means every user who receives the broadcast also passes parts of the file on to other users. In this way live video feeds, which eat up bandwidth, can be distributed to millions of users without putting impossible demands on a central server.

MobiTV passes two million subs

MobiTV has smashed through the two million paying subscriber barrier, having doubled its audience in less than 12 months.
The US company, which powers mobile TV services for the likes of Sprint, AT&T, 3 and Orange UK, says it can now offer more than a hundred channels across 150 handsets.

Since passing the one million subscriber mark in April last year, MobiTV has landed $100 million in VC cash to fund development of WiMAX/DVB-H delivery and interactive advertising models.

It has also moved into the Latin American market, securing 14 operator distribution deals in the region.

Phillip Alvelda, CEO and co-founder of MobiTV, said: “The recent hype in the mobile media space isn’t all that surprising given the new contenders looking to enter the marketplace some time later this year. But nothing tells an unequivocal story of success quite like a subscriber base soaring past two million and growing faster than ever before.”

Verizon Wireless to launch Vcast Mobile TV March 1

Verizon Wireless will begin offering mobile television on March 1, according to coverage maps on the carrier’s Web site.

No further details were offered, and the maps offered the caveat that mobile TV would be available only in “select markets” on March 1. The maps do not currently show coverage in major markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego or Las Vegas.

Verizon Wireless has branded the service as “Vcast Mobile TV,” and references to the service are available in several locations on the carrier’s Web site.

Verizon Wireless has previously said that its Vcast Mobile TV service will have “an initial launch in many major U.S. markets” by the end of the first quarter, which ends March 31. The carrier is using Qualcomm Inc.’s MediaFLO mobile TV network for the service; AT&T Inc.’s Cingular Wireless L.L.C. also has announced that it will use MediaFLO for mobile TV, and will launch commercial services late this year.

DigiTAG

DigiTAG aims to encourage and facilitate the implementation and introduction of digital terrestrial television services using the standards developed by Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). DigiTAG has over 50 members from broadcasting, network operators, regulatory, and manufacturing organisations throughout Europe and beyond.

Mobile operators complete TDtv mobile TV trial in UK

Mobile & Wireless | United Kingdom
Mobile operators complete TDtv mobile TV trial in UK
Published: Monday 12 February 2007 | 11:09 AM CET
Print | Comment | Mail

Mobile operators 3UK, Orange, Vodafone and Telefonica have announced the results of a successful joint technical trial of TDtv in Bristol, UK. TDtv is the UMTS TD-CDMA-3GPP Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS) standard for mobile TV services. They are now discussing next steps and examining how the results could be used to develop commercial services. The trial found that reliable delivery of mobile TV services using TDtv is technically viable; up to 11-14 high-quality channels can be delivered in 5MHz of TDD spectrum; coverage is comparable to WCDMA but will fewer cell sites; performance was consistent when moving at speed; and that a dual-mode handset is viable. The trial was announced in October 2006 and covered a large area of Bristol using just 12 macro-cell sites. IPWireless provided the TDtv base stations, and mobile and broadband TV services company MobiTV provided the client application.

TBSkyB, Qualcomm complete second UK MediaFLO trial

Speaking to Total Telecom at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, Qualcomm vice president of business development Omar Javaid said the latest trial showed that MediaFLO has significant advantages over rival mobile TV technology DVB-H.

He explained that the physical layer field performance of MediaFLO was measured to be 4.5 dB better than DVB-H. That could mean it is able to offer “twice the effective coverage per transmitter,” than DVB-H, which could reduce rollout costs by 50%, Javaid said. Or, the operator could “use that 4.5 dB advantage to offer twice the amount of service,” he added, such as making 40 channels available, rather than 20.

Pricing, Quality and Reliability Issues Turn Off Users of Mobile TV and Video

Ex-users outnumber current users, survey of 22,000 reveals


With mobile TV just beginning to take off in the United States, service providers can learn from the experiences of mobile TV users in Europe. A survey of 22,000 European mobile service users commissioned by Tellabs revealed that former users of mobile TV and video now outnumber current users by more than 19%. The research, conducted by M:Metrics in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain, cited price, reliability and quality issues as the main reasons why users do not come back for more.

AT&T Selects QUALCOMM's MediaFLO USA for Mobile Entertainment Services: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Feb. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MediaFLO USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM - News), and Cingular, the new wireless unit of AT&T (NYSE: T - News), today announced they signed a definitive agreement to deliver mobile entertainment and information services to the wireless unit's subscribers. The two companies expect to make the service available to customers in late 2007.

Telefónica Trials Mobile TV with Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica have announced that they are conducting a pilot project for Mobile TV in Spain. The trial started in early October 2006 and is scheduled to run for 6 months.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, using its Mobile Interactive TV solution, Telefónica will be able to create interactive television services, allowing mobile end-users to watch TV channels, consult an electronic program guide (EPG) in a preferred format, rapidly change channels or content, and use contextual interactive services, such as ordering content associated with a TV program.

Qualcomm, Huawei to unveil MBMS mobile TV technology

Qualcomm, together with Huawei, will jointly demonstrate Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) mobile TV technology at 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona.

The collaborative demonstration follows the completion of interoperability testing, enabling commercialisation of a technology that delivers TV to mobile handsets over existing UMTS networks.

The demonstrations of MBMS will feature a handset based on Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem (MSM) MSM7200 chipset receiving TV programmes at 256Kbps from Huawei's UMTS/HSPA network.

The MSM7200 chipset, which is expected to be commercially available in handsets and smartphones starting from the second quarter of 2007, supports 7.2Mbps HSDPA and up to 5.76Mbps HSUPA.

Mobile TV is key topic at 3GSM

Mobile TV is set to be the most important topic under the spotlight at the 3GSM World Congress, scheduled to open in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday (Feb. 12), according to an EE Times Europe poll.

The poll conducted over the weeks before the congress found that 38 percent of those who voted said that mobile TV would have the most impact at the event, while 31 percent said fourth generation communications would lead the way. Some 30 percent said that Apple's iPhone, launched a few weeks ago, would have the most impact in Barcelona.

The vote is a "straw poll" with a self-selecting audience, but to judge by the number of mobile television announcements made by companies this week, the voters have their finger on the pulse.