The research firm Cantab Wireless’ latest report on mobile television says 472 million people worldwide will be watching mobile TV by 2013. The strongest growth will be in Asia, especially South Korea and Japan, but Europe and the United States will start catching up in 2010..
One of the key problems is — not surprisingly — finding an appropriate business model. “It is not yet obvious on how to make money in the mobile TV business,” Cantab Wireless says.
The report, “Mobile TV – Technologies, Country Cases, and Forecasts for 2009 – 2013,” notes the “contest” between cellular operators and TV broadcasters. Cellular operators understand the mobile business, provide distribution systems for mobile TV devices and have established systems for charging subscribers, the report says.
Needing each other…and business models
TV broadcasters say they understand the television business, have established relationships with content providers and have their own broadcast networks. Cantab says both cellular operators and TV broadcasters have strengths and weaknesses, and need each other to find viable business models.
Cantab says 4G cellular systems (LTE) will provide much greater capacity and “will become serious competitors to broadcast TV systems. The current economic slowdown will have only a temporary effect on mobile TV user numbers,” the press release says.
The report says that in the medium term broadcast mobile TV systems will be popular. In the long run, though, point-to-point mobile TV channels via 4G will become more popular.
In some European countries, especially the U.K., the shortage of spectrum for mobile TV could delay implementations. I’ve looked at this, and the U.K. certainly has problems with spectrum for terrestrial-based mobile TV, at least in the short run. Satellite-based mobile TV is a possibility, but spectrum also needs to be allocated for that delivery mechanism.
Paid versus free
The dynamics of the business vary in different in regions of the world. The U.S. is dominated by mobile TV via 3G and Qualcomm’s FLO.TV system. Europe is mostly a bastion of DVB-H, and Asia has several standards and business models, including more free TV broadcast both phones and other electronic devices.
Although some U.S. cellular operators offer a few free mobile TV programs on compatible handsets, the business of free, ad-supported mobile TV will get its chance to be tested if the standard promoted by Open Mobile Video Coalition members sees a commercial launch this year, as expected.
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