The EC said it would look closely at market developments over the next few months and come up with proposals in 2008, including if necessary and appropriate, mandating the use of DVB-H.
In the face of the forecast that mobile TV market could reach some 500 million customers worldwide by 2011 and be worth 20bn euros ($27.5bn), the commission is concerned that the take-up of mobile TV in the Europe has been slow. It said that in South Korea, Asia’s most developed mobile TV market, the penetration rate is close to 10%, yet in Italy, the EU’s most developed market, it is less than 1%.
Reding said Europe is at a crossroads. She said it could either take the lead globally, as it did for mobile telephony based on the GSM standard, or allow other regions take the lion’s share of the market. Wait-and-see is not an option. The time has come for Europe’s industry and governments to switch on to mobile TV, she said.
The EC wants spectrum to be freed up for mobile TV services by the switch-off of analog TV services. It wants spectrum in the UHF band (470-862 MHz) which it said is the most suitable for mobile multimedia services. It also wants to open up to mobile TV the L-band (1452-1492 MHz) as a fallback option.
The commission encouraged the establishment of a European Mobile Broadcasting Council in 2006, but says it failed to agree on industry led-solutions. This is why it has now decided to intervene.
Omar Javaid, VP of business development at Qualcomm’s MediaFLO Mobile TV operation, said technology neutrality is vital because the market should ultimately decide which technologies are best suited for each territory or organization.
