The European Union (EU) is leaning towards accepting Nokia's DVB-H mobile television standard according to a draft document, The Wall Street Journal says. The EU's European Commission says Nokia's proposal is the "strongest contender" compared to Qualcomm's MediaFLO and T-DMB.
If approved, EU member countries "will be required to encourage the use of DVB-H for the provision of terrestrial mobile-television services," according to the document reported in the WSJ.
T-DMB is the standard in South Korea that had lobbied heavily for it. But odds against the EU selecting a South Korean-promoted protocol for Europe are astronomical. (The WSJ didn't say that!)
Shocked! Shocked!
However, if you follow the mobile TV environment you know that based on the history of DVB-H -- including European countries' investment in the protocol as well as their antipathy towards Qualcomm in general -- it would be shocking if DVB-H wasn't endorsed as the European standard.
Viviane Reding, the EC Commissioner for information society and media (see left)
has previously told the European mobile community that unless they
selected a single mobile TV standard the EC would select one for them,
the article notes. Reding has said she prefers DVB-H because it is a
European technology that has been funded in part by the EU.
The Wall Street Journal says the EU has spent some 40 million euros ($53,850,000 -- boy oh boy is the euro high against the dollar, sigh!) funding DVB-H.
Disingenuous?
According to the WSJ, the EU says DVB-H is "used in most countries," T-DMB isn't common and MediaFLO is a "proprietary solution" that is at the start of the testing stage.
Granted, DVH-H is used in a few commercial European systems and I haven't seen the draft document. But characterizing MediaFLO as in the start of the testing phase -- when Verizon Wireless has been offering it commercially for months -- might be somewhat disingenuous.
Comments