Four out of five UK mobile operators to test TDtV

THE BATTLE to supply TV services to mobile phones took an unexpected twist when four major UK operators announced their participation in a trial of TDtv. (Tony Dennis TV? Ed.)

The only omission is that of Germany's T-Mobile. But until now Telefonica subsidiary Oh DOS (O2) had been a major proponent of the rival mobile TV technology, DVB-H.

DVB-H is the technology favoured by leading handset manufacturer, Nokia. The catch is that in the UK, DVB-H won't be available on a national basis until 2012.

The second snag with DVB-H is that it is extremely likely that the British government will extract large amounts of money for the spectrum associated with DVB-H when it becomes available.

By contrast, the beauty of TDtv is that it utilises spectrum which the mobile operators acquired when they paid out £ billions for their 3G licences.

The trail will involve 12 cell sites covering parts of Bristol to provide broadcast TV services to compatible smartphones. Let's hope the participants don't pay too much attention to what the trailists say they'd be prepared to pay for.

Rival TV supplier, Bruce Renny - marketing director with Rok TV - claimed that O2's DVB-H trail had shown that only 11 per cent of people would be prepared to pay for pornographic TV services whereas his research showed that it was nearer 50 per cent.

TDtv is based on an industry standard (MBMS) and is being championed by IP Wireless.

With Virgin already offering a mobile TV service using BT's Movio technology, this announcement makes the UK a hotbed of testing for mobile TV services. µ

L'INQ
IP Wireless