<strong>TV</strong>BEU RO PE THE WORKFLOW HTC product demo: The arrival of improved smartphones knocked broadcast <strong>TV</strong> off its perch by making streamed 3G <strong>TV</strong> services possible <strong>Mobile</strong> <strong>TV</strong> <strong>is</strong> <strong>alive</strong>! Continued from page 1 mobile broadcast <strong>TV</strong> service in the world. Dr Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, said the FLO venture fell victim to a number of factors, such as the lack of national coverage in the early years of the service; the reliance on operators to market a product of which they had little experience; and the requirement for consumers to buy a new phone, from a very limited range. In addition, the arrival of improved smartphones and HSPA knocked broadcast <strong>TV</strong> off its perch somewhat, by making streamed 3G <strong>TV</strong> services possible — while new technologies such as ATSC M/H allowed the use of ex<strong>is</strong>ting digital <strong>TV</strong> networks and avoided the need to build expensive new infrastructure. Holden added: “The dem<strong>is</strong>e of FLO <strong>TV</strong> was emblematic of the waning popularity of dedicated mobile broadcast <strong>TV</strong> networks worldwide. The economics of deployment simply don’t stand up, particularly given the fact that in many markets streaming <strong>TV</strong> apps typically offload the bulk of traffic to WiFi. Indeed, streaming <strong>TV</strong> apps enjoyed a surge in popularity last year, witness the success of Mobi<strong>TV</strong> in the US, which had more than 14 million subscribers by late 2010.” He added that despite Mobi<strong>TV</strong>’s success, it <strong>is</strong> fair to say that the mobile handset <strong>is</strong> not an optimal device on which to watch <strong>TV</strong> for any length of time. “Tablets are another matter entirely. Video traffic across tablets <strong>is</strong> likely to grow at an exponential rate over the next few years.” Holden stated: “However, mobile handsets, particularly smartphones, are ideal for ‘snacking <strong>TV</strong>’, be that in the form of videoclips or short streamed video, and it’s in th<strong>is</strong> area that we’re likely to see the greatest scaling up of traffic volume, be it videos watched on social networks, Youtube, news clips, sports clips or even advert<strong>is</strong>ements.” Jan Olin, managing director for Europe at Mobi<strong>TV</strong>, agreed that tablets will feature strongly in the future growth of mobile <strong>TV</strong>: “Various mobile <strong>TV</strong> services have been launched by mobile operators in Europe, and none have been really successful. <strong>Mobile</strong> content as a standard vertical <strong>is</strong> not an easy sell in Europe; I see it being driven from the <strong>TV</strong> in the home, to the tablet and mobile, with personal<strong>is</strong>ed services.” Cedric Fernandes, VP of technology at Mobi<strong>TV</strong>, added: “We believe that to be successful with mobile <strong>TV</strong>, you need to take the best of both worlds,” he remarked, referring to scheduled and personal<strong>is</strong>ed <strong>TV</strong> services. “I think other services haven’t done so well because they have worked on the model of doing purely broadcast to the mobile phone. <strong>Mobile</strong>s are personal<strong>is</strong>ed devices, so you must bring personal<strong>is</strong>ation to it,” he said. Mobi<strong>TV</strong> announced in January that it has partnered with <strong>Mobile</strong> Content Venture, a joint venture between various broadcasters in the US to create a mobile <strong>TV</strong> service on broadcast technology, mobile D<strong>TV</strong> (the US equivalent of Europe’s old favourite, DVB-H). Yet the final service, due in the second half of 2011, will not be purely broadcast; Mobi<strong>TV</strong> <strong>is</strong> combining its background of unicast (unicast-based media servers open and provide a stream for each unique user) personal<strong>is</strong>ed mobile <strong>TV</strong>, including video-on-demand, with broadcast, scheduled <strong>TV</strong>. Fernandes commented: “We think a broadcast-only solution doesn’t work, as proven in Europe and by Flo<strong>TV</strong> in the US. You need the whole offering, with unicast to provide personal<strong>is</strong>ed services as well.” IMB hotspots Another wireless technology being spoken about at the show as an alternative to unicast was IMB, which enables the broadcast of content such as live <strong>TV</strong> channels, at the cellular transmitter level, using the 3G or 4G licensed radio spectrum, and received on IMB capable 3G or 4G mobile terminals. IMB was accepted as part of the Release 8 3GPP standards in December 2008. It was endorsed as the preferred broadcast standard by the GSMA in September 2009. On 22 June 2010, O2, Orange and Vodafone announced a multioperator IMB pilot in the UK, which was set to run from October last year for around three months. The trial <strong>is</strong> looking at how mobile broadcast services can be deployed using shared network infrastructure, on a part of the 3G spectrum that <strong>is</strong> rarely used, called Time Div<strong>is</strong>ion Duplex (TDD). Th<strong>is</strong> spectrum already forms part of the 3G licences held by many European mobile operators, but has remained largely unused because of a lack of appropriate technology. Currently, 3G TDD spectrum <strong>is</strong> available to over 150 operators across 60 countries covering more than half a billion subscribers. At the show, Benoit Graves, senior technical expert at Orange, gave an update on the progress of the UK IMB trial. He commented: “The results are impressive. The quality of service on video <strong>is</strong> really good on a smartphone screen, and set up time including buffering takes just three seconds to get on screen. Video interruption time for IMB to 3G handover <strong>is</strong> typically under two seconds; moving from one network to another <strong>is</strong> very important for th<strong>is</strong> service. We have a brief interruption, but it’s very good. And if there <strong>is</strong> congestion, we can target the hotspots.” Graves continued on the benefits of IMB for mobile operators: “IMB allows us to provide limited content to an unlimited number of users, whereas unicast, which uses HSPA and LTE, provides unlimited content to a limited number of users. IMB <strong>is</strong> a single frequency network with synchronous transm<strong>is</strong>sion, which improves the overall spectral efficiency. It bypasses the mobile network, unlike unicast, which goes over it. “We have to think of IMB as not just live <strong>TV</strong>, in the way we thought of mobile <strong>TV</strong> before, but as a way to offload content from the mobile networks” — Benoit Graves, Orange “We have to think of IMB as not just live <strong>TV</strong>, in the way we thought of mobile <strong>TV</strong> before, but as a way to offload content from the mobile networks. We would use it to push some really popular content, such as subscribed magazines and newspapers, to end users. We can use it to offload 10% to 20% of user data from the networks. By offloading up to 20% of mobile data onto IMB, we would achieve cost savings on our 3G and 4G networks, and get better quality of service for end users,” he said. The trial, which <strong>is</strong> using combined spectrum in the 1905- 10MHz (Orange UK) range and 1910-15MHz (O2 UK) <strong>is</strong> still ongoing. The operators have achieved the simultaneous broadcast of 20 live <strong>TV</strong> channels and 10 radio channels over IMB. Tempest®2400: Wireless Intercom With The Most Options A truly flexible and scalable wireless intercom system that can grow with you as your communication needs change. With Tempest®2400, you make the choices: For wireless intercom with the most options, choose Tempest2400. www.clearcom.com ®Tempest <strong>is</strong> a reg<strong>is</strong>tered trademark of CoachComm, LLC. Clear-Com <strong>is</strong> a reg<strong>is</strong>tered trademark of HM Electronics, Inc. 20 www.tvbeurope.com MARCH 2011
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