Away from the supposed glitz and glamour of the usual Cannes location, with its yachts and movie star connotations, the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona obviously decided it needed to inject some of the glamour back.

Actors Wesley Snipes and Juliette Lewis appeared at a BlogStar press conference alongside model Caprice; Craig David sang a song or two at the Congress; the Sugababes entertained at the FreeScale Semiconductor shindig; while DJ Judge Jules mixed dance tunes for Sony Ericsson. Certainly some glamour there.

Quite why everyone felt the need for this in a beautiful city like Barcelona, famed for its weird and wonderful architecture rather than a film festival with fleeting visits from celebrities, became clear when it was evident that the telecom industry’s focus for this year was entertainment and, specifically, mobile TV.

The whole industry believes that despite the fact that TV screens in our homes are getting bigger, actually, people will watch TV on tiny screens.

Happy punters at 3GSM...

“Mobile operators have convinced themselves that TV is a ‘hero service’ that’s going to make a big dent in the revenue side of the 3G business case,” says John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum. “This may not necessarily turn out to be a 3G story though, with many operators at least tentatively investigating digital broadcast alternatives for mobile TV.”

There do seem to be rather too many different technologies which can be used to provide mobile TV.

ROK Entertainment Group is already pushing out a multi-channel mobile TV service across the existing GPRS mobile network. Bruce Renny from ROK says GPRS coverage exceeds that of 3G so the service can be accessed in more areas and he claims: “ROK TV plays full-screen at a higher frame-rate than any existing 3G service.”

Moving on up the technology scale to 3G we have firms like Nortel and Ericsson highlighting MBMS (multimedia broadcast multicast service). This is a 3GPP industry standard which enables the broadcast of a limited number of TV channels across the 3G network – although, according to Nortel, the limit will be boosted with the future addition of OFDM and MIMO technology.

UK-based IPWireless also incorporates MBMS in its TDtv technology, currently undergoing trials with network operators.

Jon Hambidge, v-p of marketing at IPWireless, says the mobile operators really want mobile TV to take off on their own networks.

“Most of the current solutions being thrown out are separate networks which probably means they’d have to get new spectrum or partner with broadcasters,” says Hambidge. “These guys paid billions of dollars for their 3G frequency and if the next big thing on mobile doesn’t happen on 3G, it’s not something they necessarily want to see.”

Unfortunately it looks like it is not going the operator’s desired way.

TV on your phone

The majority of talk involving mobile TV centres around broadcast networks - DVB-H and T-DMB - which do not use the 3G network.

“T-DMB and DVB-H are the two most mature broadcast solutions, and are the most advanced in terms of technology and associated products,” says Vincent Poulbere, senior analyst at Ovum. “A scenario where both T-DMB and DVB-H are deployed in Europe now seems realistic.”

T-DMB, based on DAB digital radio technology, is already deployed in Korea and there is now a commercial roll-out in the massive Chinese market.

DAB specialist RadioScape has been working on the technology in China for the last two years. “China is really the big switch on, simply because of the potential market we’re now creating for consumers,” says John Hall, CEO, RadioScape.

Hall is confident that adoption in China will drive volume and hence reduce prices.

“A big factor in the success of rolling out this kind of capability to the mass market is the availability of low cost receivers,” explains Hall. “And that’s an economy of scale issue, so the more a particular standard can be established the more likely it is you’ll find receiver manufacturers willing to go down that route.”

John Hall with DAB module

However, being a software radio specialist, the London-based firm is not hanging all its hats on T-DMB, but is also following DVB-H. “Our primary role so far has been with people doing DMB investigations, but we will in time also be involved with the DVB-H business,” says Hall. “If DVB-H takes off and clearly becomes an established standard then there’s nothing stopping us going down that track as well.”

There seems to be little doubt that DVB-H will take off especially with the twin impetus of the World Cup and the Olympics on the horizon.

“DVB-H is coming,” states Berardino Baratta, general manager, multimedia applications division, wireless and mobile systems group, Freescale Semiconductor. “The belief in the market is that 3G and EDGE can have video-on-demand, but the basestations won’t be able to handle it. The World Cup and the Olympics are going to be big drivers.”

Baratta says the predictions are that DVB-H will take 40-50 per cent of the market and that putting TV on a separate broadcast network is best for the mobile network. “All the next generation technologies have to be good at voice. DVB-H as a separate network doesn’t risk voice,” he says.

Gertjan Kaat, senior vice-president, mobile and personal at Philips Semiconductors, agrees: “If you have many people using mobile TV then the 3G network will become pretty overloaded.”

He also believes DVB-H is where the real action is. “We’re now close to ramping up parts,” he says. “Four out of six of the top mobile phone companies are talking to us. All are wanting to roll-out mid-year for the soccer.”

Kaat seems almost disappointed when asked about the abundance of technologies. “We thought there’d be less technologies, but DVB-H is by far supported by the biggest community.”

Terry Yen, senior director marketing at Qualcomm, takes the view that there is room for all - including its home-grown MediaFlo. “There’s room in the industry for more than one standard. If you look at the industry, historically, [more than one standard] won’t really slow things down.”

What might slow it down though is the small issue of how operators are going to make money from this.

ROK’s Renny believes relying on broadcast programmes will not work.

“Most people [in Japan and Korea] view broadcast TV as free and are unwilling to pay any more than a token amount to watch it on their mobiles,” states Renny. “What they will pay for, however, is ‘on-demand’ content. Effectively, people are willing to pay for what they want to watch, when they want to watch it.”

Philips’ Kaat adds: “If you ask the end users there is an interest in using it and knowledge that they have to pay for it.” Whether that includes the World Cup is something we will find out this year.