What is mobile TV?

“Mobile TV involves bringing TV services to the mobile phones. It combines the services of a mobile phone with television content and represents a logical step both for consumers and operators and content providers. Mobile TV over cellular networks allows viewers to enjoy personalized, interactive TV with content specifically adapted to the mobile medium. The services and viewing experience of mobile TV over cellular networks differs in a variety of ways from traditional TV viewing. In addition to mobility, mobile TV delivers a variety of services including video-on-demand, traditional/linear and live TV programs. Another exciting opportunity for users is Mobile TV pod casts, where content is delivered to a user’s mobile on demand or by subscriptions. Stored locally on the handset, this content can then be viewed even when there’s no network connection. And a service provider can schedule the delivery to “off-peak” hours, for example during the night. Technically, there are currently two main ways of delivering mobile TV. The first is via a two-way cellular network and the second is through a one-way dedicated broadcast network. These include digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H), digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), TDtv (based on TD-CDMA technology from [IPWireless]), 1seg (based on Japan's ISDB-T), DAB and MediaFLO. None is ideal as all have drawbacks of one kind or another: spectral frequencies used or needed, signal strength required, new antennas and towers, network capacity required, or business model. Using the existing 3G (WCDMA/HSPA) network is the fastest and easiest way to get Mobile TV off the ground. It allows for the quick start an operator needs to grab the initiative and develop relationships with both customers and content providers. There is more than enough capacity in 3G networks to scale up for a mass market of Mobile TV services, particularly if an operator has HSPA as this will provide for several steps of capacity increases. And MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), which means broadcast over 3G networks, will soon allow a traffic channel to be shared by all the users that are simultaneously watching the same program in the same area. MBMS complements HSPA to support higher loads in dense areas and ensure efficient network utilization.” [1]

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_tv

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