Europe to go for single mobile market

Europe is soon to get a single mobile TV technology standard and it will be DVB-H.


It may not be there yet but its progress seems inevitable. The European Commission has added the DVB-H standard to the EU List of Standards, which it sees as a “step towards establishing a single market for mobile TV in Europe.”


Mobile TV could reach a market of up to €20bn by 2011, reaching some 500 million customers worldwide, according to the EC.


"For mobile TV to take off in Europe, there must first be certainty about the technology. This is why I am glad that with this decision, the EU endorses DVB-H as the preferred technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the Information Society and Media.


Much as it did with GSM mobile phones in the 1990s, a single standard will provide operators and systems developers the necessary market scale to commit to the new technology.



The EC first proposed to base mobile TV in Europe on open standard DVB-H last July. It is the most widely used standard in the EU with services in Italy and trails in 15 other countries including the UK.



The next steps for implementing the EU strategy on mobile broadcasting will include guidance on the authorisation regimes as well as the promotion of rights management systems based, as is DVB-H, on open standards



“A transparent intellectual property rights regime, based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and allowing low price of devices, is key to the success of Mobile TV,” said the EC.

So it will continue to closely monitor progress made towards the constitution of the DVB-H patent pool.



The Council of Telecoms Ministers endorsed the European Commission's strategy on Mobile TV in November 2007.