TV on cell phones is coming...and it's going to be big.

It is already gaining customers in the US, and service providers worldwide are currently testing various content-delivery styles (broadcast or on-demand), and ideas have even circulated to enable anyone to make their own content available via cellular television.

Photo credit: Michael LaFramboise

Although no version of cellular television is strong enough for mass market use as of yet, this could soon change. “TV on the cell phone is OK now,” said Clay Owen, a spokesperson for Cingular, an American cellular service provider already offering TV in select markets, "but it's going to get dramatically better later this year when the networks are upgraded"

Cellular Television is now available on mobile phones in the US and test marketing is being conducted on the viability of the technology worldwide, and although it is still in its infancy, TV could soon become an integral part of your cellular phone.

Service providers are currently testing various content-delivery styles (broadcast or on-demand), and ideas have even circulated to enable anyone to make their own content available via cellular television.

But before content can be accessible on cell phones, manufacturers and service providers must first upgrade their networks and determine which technological format works best.

Although no version of cellular television is strong enough for mass market use as of yet, this could soon change.

According to an article on TechnologyReview.com, Clay Owen, a spokesperson for Cingular, an American cellular service provider already offering TV in select markets, said "TV on the cell phone is OK now, but it's going to get dramatically better later this year when the networks are upgraded."

There are now several potential technological platforms that could emerge as the industry standard, and the market and producers must determine which of the experimental formats is most useful before proceeding.

Currently, it’s a battle of the acronyms, with DVB-H, DMB, and MediaFLO and others dipping their feet into the unexplored waters of cellular television.

DVB-H, or digital video broadcast-handset, works by simultaneously sending a signal to multiple users with a digital TV receiver attached to their cell phone. Users find programs via an on-screen guide, select the program to watch and view it when it is broadcast by the provider.

Its main competitor may be Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology, which could delivers content more cost-effectively, using multicasting technology to broadcast to many users over the bandwidth required for a single UHF TV channel.

Another potential technology is the DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), which has had some success in Asia.

Although initial trials in Helsinki, Finland only showed that 41% of all users testing the DVB-H technology would pay for the service, several US companies are already having success beaming TV signals to mobile phones to customers with Sprint, Verizon and Cingular.

Just last week, MobiTV, the first company to work in cellular TV in the US, received an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development." The award came to MobiTV after just two years of providing their service, which now reaches over 500,000 subscribers with networks including ABC News Now, MSNBC, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, ESPN and others.

Success like that is indicative for the future of cellular television. If half a million people are willing to subscribe to a service when the technology hasn't even reached its peak, one can only imagine what successes it will have once the technology is perfected.

This entry was posted by on Friday, September 30, 2005 at 10:53 AM and is filed under Tools and Utilities. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.