Significant efforts are underway by major vendors worldwide to make broadcast TV as ubiquitous as cell phones. That is because these services will be offered on cell phones, along with a wide range of other mobile electronic devices. Through the advent of a new mobile broadcast technology, Digital Video Broadcasting—Handheld (DVB-H), high quality, live, digital broadcast of TV, radio, and multimedia can now be distributed to an almost limitless number of mobile, end-user devices,
But that is only half of the story. When DVB-H-based mobile broadcast services are combined with cellular and/or Internet access services, a paradigm shift in personal entertainment will occur. User-prompted, interactive TV and radio programs, and personalized, targeted advertising are just a few of the applications that will be the catalysts for change. To understand and explore these future trends, a basic introduction to the mobile broadcast market and technology is in order.
Identifying a market need
Broadcast TV is often cited as the last consumer electronic function that has not become truly mobile. The functions provided by telephones, personal computers, media players, game devices, and even Internet access have all become mobile in the past 10-20 years. Numerous technical challenges have prevented broadcast TV from becoming mobile. For mobile devices, viewing TV using current technologies have been limited by small screen size, poor video quality, and significantly reduced battery life. Power consumption is almost always a concern when antennas, processors, and screens are on continually.
As for the broadcast network, technologies to date do not provide high-capacity digital transmissions that are optimized for signal propagation and reception for mobile devices that are moving at high speeds (>60mph). The small screens of those devices are also a problem, as is the need for error correction, to name just a few of the limitations.
Enter DVB-H, an application-specific design and technology that optimizes power consumption, high-capacity signal propagation, and video/audio quality. This technology makes mobile broadcast TV a reality. Broadcast-quality entertainment can now be offered in stand-alone devices, or combined with other personal communication and productivity functionality. For instance, Smartphones and PDAs can be repurposed and repositioned to be more than just productivity devices. They can now be productivity and personal entertainment devices that provide phone, e-mail, contacts, calendar, Internet access, and high-quality, mobile broadcast reception.
But while technically feasible, can mobile broadcast services become commercially viable? The answer is yes. With most broadcasters targeting the 18-35 year old demographic slice, market forecasts range from 25 million to 100+ million mobile broadcast end users worldwide by 2010. Users will receive mobile broadcast TV, radio, and multimedia from a wide range of devices. Some estimate that approximately 50% of mobile broadcast services will be received on handsets (including phone-enabled PDAs); with the remainder on ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPCs), notebooks, laptops, portable media players, gaming devices, and in-vehicle entertainment systems, to name just a few.
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