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.

Per Second Billing is Costly

The ongoing price war in the telecom sector has started taking its toll. While older companies such as Bharti Airtel (BHARTIARTL.BO: 342.35 +11.35) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) say that the existing tariffs are below their costs, new firms such as Tata Teleservices and Uninor say they would make profits at the current tariffs.

Price wars began in June 2009 when Tata DoCoMo launched its GSM service in Chennai. It offered a 'per second' billing to its customers, charging 1 paise per second for local and STD calls made to any network. All other operators followed.

Then the entry of MTS further intensified the war. The company introduced a tariff plan with 0.5 paise per second billing.

Presently, there are about 10 players in the market making India one of the most competitive markets in the world.

"Increase in competition has led to a price war and there is a pressure on revenues," Bharti Airtel Deputy CEO Sanjay Kapoor told Hindustan Times.

"There has to be an end to the ongoing tariff war," said R.S.P. Sinha, CMD, MTNL. "It is not sustainable for any company in the long run."

"The existing prices are much below cost," said a BSNL official who didn't want to be quoted. "New companies have nothing to lose. They have no subscriber base so they can do anything to acquire subscribers."

"There is pressure on margins due to low tariff," said Kuldeep Goyal, CMD, BSNL. "In view of this, a consolidation is bound to take place."

New operators, however, say that their prices are cost-based.

"The tariffs offered by us have been thoroughly thought out and make perfect business sense," said Anil Sardana, managing director, Tata Teleservices.

"For Uninor, our low-cost, no-legacy model will allow us to be competitive and yet preserve the business case -- the only way to succeed in a hyper-competitive market," said Stein-Erik Vellan, managing director, Uninor.