BT Movio launched recently, announcing deals with four broadcast channels in the UK and its first mobile carrier customer, the MVNO Virgin Mobile. In that case, the service on offer will be 2.5G/DAB-IP on a handset branded Lobster, manufactured by Taiwanese ODM High Tech Computer Corp (HTC).
BT Movio’s business model is to transmit the TV channels on the country’s commercial digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio multiplex, operated by a company called Digital One. The idea is to offer the content as a service on mobile phones, with its customers being the mobile operators, who in turn will market it to their subscribers, leaving their cellular networks free to carry voice or other content.
It enables broadcasting for a mass market, while the point-to-point cellular connection can be used for other services, such as video-on-demand (VoD) or catch-up TV, where viewers can go back and see something that’s already been broadcast, explained Dominic Strowbridge, marketing director of BT Movio.
The strategy therefore was to develop a platform which, aside from DAB-IP, i.e. IP comms over a DAB network, can also deliver content over cellular, wireless (WiFi and WiMAX) and other bearers such as DVB-H, a mobile TV technology favoured by carriers elsewhere in Europe, and MBMS, a technology for using another part of the 3G spectrum for broadcast rather than unicast comms. As such, it requires at least dual-mode phones so that the operator can provide broadcast content on the dedicated DAB bearer while the 3G network can be used for all other forms of traffic.
In other words, Movio is largely agnostic to the other spectrum and radio access network technology sharing the phones with DAB, provided they too are IP-based. It was for this reason, for instance, that it rejected DMB, another mobile TV technology that is not based on IP, Strowbridge said.
DAB, meanwhile, presented a series of advantages for Movio’s objectives, because (a) the network already existed, with coverage of 85% of the UK population, as well as a transmission technology that was mature, and (b) it already supported encryption, which is obviously key to enabling subscription-based models. Indeed, this is one of the drawbacks to DVB-H, in that there is currently no encryption standard for it. In the UK’s case in particular, there is also the issue spectrum for DVB-H won’t become available until analog TV is fully switched off in 2012.
The fact that BT Movio is offering four broadcast channels, meanwhile, is a function of the country’s legislation, which states that no more than 30% of DAB spectrum can be used for services other than its primary purpose, i.e. radio.
With that restriction in mind, BT Movio found that a maximum of four channels could be broadcast at acceptable levels of quality, Strowbridge said. There is clearly now a lobbying activity underway for the authorities to free up additional DAB spectrum for non-radio content.
As for the potential for business in countries other than the UK, the BT Movio exec said the main focus right now is on developing the domestic market, but the company’s bearer-independent content delivery platform could clearly be used in other countries, and indeed has already been in a mobile TV trial in the Netherlands.
Furthermore, the choice of ZTE as its second handset provider and the first for 3G networks is clearly determined to some extent by BT Movio’s desire to see DAB-IP more widely used as the bearer for mobile TV broadcasting, with the Chinese market as an obvious target for such technology.
For ZTE, meanwhile, the deal represents a second high-profile customer win in the UK, the handset manufacturer having already announced a 3G phone with mobile operator 3.
Furthermore, the development of 3G/DAB-IP dual-mode devices will add another string to its multimedia bow: ZTE is also preparing to take part in the launch of an MBMS-based mobile TV offering in Hong Kong by the end of this year, and DVB-H is clearly also on its roadmap.
Meanwhile, at least four semiconductor firms – TI, STMicro, Siano Mobile Silicon and Frontier Semiconductor – have announced plans for dual-mode DVB-H/DAB-IP chipsets.
