The European Commissioner for telecoms has called on the industry to adopt a single standard for mobile TV with the hope that the technology will become as economically successful as GSM.
“To fully reap the benefits of this market and to export a European model for mobile TV as we did with GSM for mobile phones, industry and member states must work more closely to devise a common approach... to ensure a quick and large take-up of mobile TV by Europeans, preferably based on a single standard,” said telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding.
The EC has already invested some €40m in mobile TV-related research and has supported the emergence of DVB-H. However, other standards being trialled in Europe include T-DMB, DVB-SH and MediaFlow while DAB-IP has beed rolled out in the UK by BT.
“European industry has already developed successful standards in the past, and I am very confident that on the basis of DVB-H, mobile TV services can develop the economies of scale they need for take-up across Europe and around the world,” said Reding.
European mobile network operators have called for more spectrum to be made available for mobile TV as it is thought a lack of spectrum could limit development.
DVB-H requires the use of spectrum in the UHF broadcasting band which is still heavily used for analogue and digital broadcasting.