EU pushes for common mobile TV standard

The European commission is putting pressure on the industry to agree on common standards for mobile television.

On 18 July, EU telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding is expected to increase pressure on mobile companies to agree to a single standard in the new field of video for mobile phones.

The technology used to send video directly to mobile phones is currently divided between two main systems: Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H), and Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB).

For the last year, the commission has been pushing mobile producers to combine their technology into a single standard, but no compromise has yet been reached.

Reding is now expected to urge EU countries to adopt as their common standard DVB-H – a system which is already used by companies such as Nokia, Philips and Sony Ericsson, buy not by several others including Samsung and Panasonic.

If the move fails to force through a compromise, Reding is expected to pass a directive in the next year to bind all EU countries to DVB-H.

Unless standardisation is achieved, mobile viewers travelling a few hundred kilometres could find themselves having to switch telephones in order to continue watching the same TV show.

The number of mobile video viewers is still low at 1 million across Europe, but some estimates say this could rise to 43 million users by 2012 – with mobile companies hoping to replicate the medium’s success in Asia.

• Previous article
• Next article