06 March 2005

Nokia sees mass mobile TV take-up by '08!

Television viewing on mobile phones will reach the masses by 2008, the world's largest cellphone maker Nokia said on Thursday.

Dozens of trials in the last year have shown the mobile industry that consumers enjoy mobile TV and, more importantly, that they are willing to pay from 5 to 10 euros a month for it.

Excited by the prospects of a possible cash cow, the mobile and broadcast industries are keen to launch commercial services in Europe and the United States, while South Korea already has them in operation.

There are currently half a dozen mobile TV technologies which work in many different parts of the frequency band.

Nokia favors the European DVB-H standard, but the preferred frequencies are not available throughout the continent. That means certain countries like Finland, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands will adopt it commercially in coming months and years, but others may take much longer.

About DVB-H
DVB-H is an open procedure standard developed by the DVB Project and enjoys broad industry support with more than 100 companies working on DVB-H components, devices and services today. The open approach of the DVB-H standard nurtures flexibility of business models, competition and sales opportunities for the value chain. The DVB-H standard incorporates OFDM air interface technology with good spectral efficiency, immunity to multipath fading and good mobile performance.