Mobile TV

In India, Live TV on mobile phone is a thrilling vision where more than 230 million mobile phone connections and about 120 million TV sets are into use. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the broadcasting regulator, has considered and approved the idea of accessing TV on mobiles. Taking into account that one amongst six people across the world has a mobile phone and watching TV is one of the most popular pastimes, the prospective for Mobile TV in India appears vast in time. It is expected that there would be 5 to 8 million Mobile TV users in the country by 2010.

 

Around the World…

Where South Korea became the vanguard in Mobile TV, Japan too didn’t leave the opportunity to arrange new services. Likewise, prospects are high for India, where people spend a lot of time traveling. Content and broadcast companies, mobile service providers, infrastructure and handset manufacturers and technology providers are expected to get new business opportunities with operation of Mobile TV in the nation. In simple terms, it’s for all those who are passionate about new technology and are comfortable with features like texting, streaming, podcasting etc.

 

All About Technology

Mobile TV stands for Live TV transmitted through digital broadcasting technologies, for example DVB-H (digital video broadcasting-handheld) and DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting). Seeing that broadcast network for Mobile TV is different from cellular networks, 3G is not a condition for Mobile TV. In India, Nokia has already launched DVB-H enabled devices - N92 and N77 for Rs 21,000 and Rs 22,500. The Delhi users can see eight channels of Doordarshan. The users in other cities have to wait a little until Nokia extends its support and Doordarshan expands its services.

 

Spectrum Allocation

Auction of spectrum for Mobile TV services has been recently recommended by TRAI. Every operator, having cellular mobile telephone service license or unified access service license, would not require any other license to offer mobile TV services on their own network. A new class of mobile TV operators has also been suggested by TRAI. However, the suggestions still need to be accepted by the Government.

 

Prospective Ventures

As early experiments appear to be promising, Star Mobile Entertainment has joined hands with Sony Ericsson to put forward pre-loaded PLUS application in handsets falling in Walkman and Cyber-shot range. For this service, users can access more than 200 videos for Rs 30 per month. Similarly, MTV - the music channel, has tied-up with Vodafone, to launch a series of animated music videos. Channels like NDTV, CNBC and Cartoon Network have set connections with BSNL.

 

Reliance, which has become a trusted name, is charging Rs 3 per minute for Mobile TV service, quite expensive if it is compared with a 99paisa call. However, Idea Cellular is comparatively good with its basic streaming service comprising 20 channels for Rs 150 per month. Experiments with daily pricing are on rise, to encourage sampling and make people comfortable with the idea of Mobile TV, by some operators.

 

The Future

Once the market develops and 3G policies get placed, Companies like Samsung and Nokia are all set to launch mobile TV handsets in India. At the outset, metropolitans and urban towns would be the target market and gradually filtering to other semi-urban towns. Sketchily, after overcoming primary obstacles such as fixed 3G policy, spectrum allocation, cost of mobile TV enabled handsets, designing of right content for mobile TV and speed of video streaming, it is projected to be a huge success in India.