Communications Regulatory Authority

Nelonen, Nokia, TeliaSonera, and YLE) and 500 users of the city of Helsinki. Digita
won the first license assigned b the Ministry of Transportation and Communications for
the commercial launch of mobile television services using the DVB-H standard.
In Spain, two experiments (also conducted on the DVB-H technology) have
been concluded; they concerned the areas of Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville, and
involved numerous communication companies (Abertis Telecom, Nokia, Telefónica
Móviles, Antena 3, Sogecable, Tele 5, RTVE, Telemadrid, TV de Catalunya, Vodafone
España, Net TV, RTVA, RTVV, and Veo TV).
In the United Kingdom, O2, Arqiva, Nokia, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five TV,
Turner Broadcasting, Shorts International, Discovery, Eurosport, MTV, and BSkyB
started an experiment in Oxford whose final results will be announced in 2006.
In France, the Higher Council of the Audiovisual authorized four experiments in
the Paris area: three of the four authorized consortiums will use the DVB-H standard,
while one will use the Korean Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB)
standard.
Lastly, television and radio service experiments based on the DVB-H standard
are under way in Holland, with the involvement of the operators KPN, Digitenne,
Nozema Services, and TNO.
Another technology, which has recently been tested for the supply of television
services to mobile users, is the Digital Audio Broadcasting Internet Protocol (DAB-IP).
In 2005 British Telecom and Virgin Mobile tried this standard on around 1,000 users, to
whom a packet of television and radio channels was proposed.
Qualcomm and the satellite pay-TV operator BSkyB have signed a letter of
intent for the carrying out, in Great Britain, of experiments on the MediaFLO
technology, which is used, as we have already seen, in the United States. The start-up is
planned for the summer of this year, and will involve a selection of BSkyB channels
that will be made available on several terminals provided by Qualcomm.
Also from the standpoint of the supply of value-added services on mobile
terminals, portals have been the main instrument through which operators have carried
such services. Thanks to the portal, the mobile operator does not limit itself simply to
providing the infrastructure through which the content arrives to the end users, but it
creates actual environments in which the user finds a rich selection of quality
audiovisual contents and services which are optimized for reception on the terminal.
Until now, most of the operators’ portals have fallen within the category of the
so-called “walled gardens”, the term used to indicate the control exercised by the
operator in the users’ enjoyment of the value-added mobile contents and services. The
operators that use “walled garden” portals implement policies aiming to discourage the
free enjoyment of content outside their own mobile portal, by applying, for example,
higher rates for navigation on sires not included in their portal, or by making it
complicated for users to reach other sites outside of it.
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