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Archive for the ‘Mobile TV’ Category

Mobile TV ads worth $500 million by 2013

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Analysts have been polishing their crystal balls over mobile TV and they reckon that it could soon be a top notch way of delivering adverts. A new report from Juniper Research has found that this year, mobile TV will earn $335 million in ad revenues while by 2013, that figure will reach $2.5 billion. The whole mobile ad market will be $7.6 billion according to the analysts.

By 2010, mobile TV will also be the most lucrative channel for mobile advertising, although idle screen advertising will also do well, with ad spend $7 million this year and up to $500 million in 2013.

If mobile is the biggest generator of ad revenue, it looks like we can expect more free channels and programming on the way. If there’s one thing that could open up mobile TV more than anything else – be it good handsets, clever standards, and so on – then it’s possibility advertisers will make sure we can watch TV gratis. As long as we can get over all those annoying ads…

Tags: advertising, analyst, idle screen, juniper research, Mobile TV
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Local broadcasters testing 3 mobile TV standards

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

Regardless of how mobile TV has performed to date, it looks like more and companies can’t wait to get involved. According to AP, the Open Mobile Video Coalition – a collection of owners of over 800 local TV stations – is testing three broadcast mobile TV standards.

The group will provide recommendations for a standard to standards body Advanced Television Systems Committee and hopes to have it approved by next February, when the US will switch off its analogue TV signal.

It looks like there could be a new trend in mobile TV broadcasting: both the Open Mobile Video Coalition and ICO Global Communications are launching mobile TV services but want to sell them as suitable for other devices, as well as mobiles, like in-car entertainment systems or laptops. By increasing its potential market beyond mobile devices, could this give mobile TV the push it needs for mass market take-up? Or is it a sign that purely mobile TV isn’t viable?

Tags: broadcast, Mobile TV, open mobile video coalition, standards
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ICO puts up satellite for US mobile TV

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

ICO Global Communications has announced its launched a new satellite that will allow it to start offering new mobile services later on in this year. The satellite, called ICO.G1, went up yesterday from Cape Canaveral, and reached its orbit later that afternoon.

The satellite will let ICO provide services including mobile TV, navigation and emergency assistance service “to be known as ICO mim (mobile interactive media)” across the US, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

According to the Washington Post, the company reckons its mobile TV service will be different to others on the market because it will reach even the most remote parts of the US. Add in the two way communications the standard allows, and it looks like ICO has an interesting service on its hands. Don’t expect it to turn up on your mobile any time soon – the company is using a standard that hasn’t really been adopted yet.

Tags: emergency, ico, mim, Mobile TV, satellite, video
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Nokia: Mobile TV in turmoil

Monday, April 14th, 2008

You know things can’t be all good with mobile TV when one of its biggest proponents – Nokia favours the DVB-H standard – admits that rollout aren’t going as well as the company had hoped.

Head of internet services t the Finnish handset maker, Niklas Savander, told Reuters that broadcast mobile TV “is a bit in turmoil… We have seen that there are multiple segments who are not interested in the broadcasting, but rather in downloads. Roll out is slower than also we anticipated a couple of years ago.”

Nokia may not have predicted it, but from the time mobile TV started being discussed, a lot of other people did. The success of downloads is probably due not only to their greater accessibility – everyone can get 3G, not everyone can get DVB-H programming – but also it seems to suit mobile usage patterns better. A three minute snack TV program is handy when you’re waiting for the bus, a 30 minute broadcast TV program less so.

Tags: dvb-h, Mobile TV, nokia
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Qualcomm gives MediaFLO a $558m boost

Monday, April 7th, 2008

Remember all the discussion over what the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction would yield for the mobile industry? Well, at least part of that question has been answered: Qualcomm is using its newly won spectrum to broaden the capacity of its MediaFLO TV service, after spending $558.1 million in the auction.

The company said Qualcomm said the licences will let it offer more MediaFLO content in areas including Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco. The company has also got new spectrum around its office to help with R&D efforts.

Mobile TV is still an uncertain bet – anything that can help whip up some more interest from users can only be a good thing. Hopefully the capacity boost will let Qualcomm do some serious work on differentiating its content from what’s available on the home TV.

Tags: auction, mediaflo, Mobile TV, qualcomm, spectrum
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AT&T brings Qualcomm’s flow to mobiles from May

Friday, March 28th, 2008

AT&T has revealed it will be bringing Qualcomm’s MediaFLO mobile TV technology to users’ phones by May. FLO will launch on AT&T’s network this May on two new devices, the LG Vu and the Samsung Access.

AT&T said the service will feature two exclusive TV channels, but didn’t give any more information on their content. The operator did say however that it will offer full-length television content and sporting events and programming from leading entertainment brands CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2Go and Nickelodeon.

While there still seems to be a lot of skepticism from several quarters on whether mobile TV is a goer, the networks at least seem to be convinced. I can’t help but think that AT&T will need to add a lot more devices to its line up before too long if it wants to take mobile TV anywhere beyond a niche product.

Tags: access, AT&T, flo, LG, mediaflo, Mobile TV, qualcomm, samsung, vu
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US to Dish up next mobile TV offering?

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

The US could be getting another mobile TV service, according to The Financial Times. The paper quotes analysts as saying broadcaster Dish Networks “could be considering launching a mobile TV service to compete with the leading US mobile phone companies” after bidding at the US 700 Mhz spectrum auction and winning enough licences to “create a nationwide footprint”.

The speculation the spectrum will be used for mobile TV rather than voice or data stems from the nature of the spectrum Dish, through a company called Frontier Wireless, bought: the spectrum is suited to video but can’t handly two way communication.

But whether that actually translates to mobile TV remains to be seen. After all, few broadcast mobile TV services are up and running commercially, let alone are bringing in the revenue. Dish so far has refused to comment on its plans for the spectrum. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if there’s more mobile TV on the way.

Tags: data, dish, frontier wireless, Mobile TV, spectrum, video, voice
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Porto Media looks neat; now just add mobile

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

I came across Porto Media whilst I was sat on the Heathrow Express this afternoon in a promotional video by IBM. (You can, incidentally, see the video here… IBM haven’t quite entered the 2.0 age — the video is simply a Quicktime download link so I can’t embed it here).

Here’s how it works:

The Movie Key is a USB stick. You plug it into these ATM style ‘moviepoint’ machines and download your movie of choice there and then. Smart.

It’s using Microsoft Windows digital rights management stuff so the movie will expire after a few days and the movie companies can relax about content control.

The thing that struck me when watching the video was that it would be rather convenient to use your mobile instead of a USB Stick. Theoretically speaking, actually, you could probably get a Nokia N95 8Gb to work with this service. You’d have to wait a little while for the movie to download to it though, even by USB… it’d probably take ages.

Still, i like the concept of being able to ‘plug my mobile’ into a moviepoint ATM and rent a few movies to watch at home later on. Or on the plane. Or wherever.

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	YES!		9%
	No - boring!		91%