Mobile TV: Let's Get On With It !

(An address by The Bridge Networks Managing Director, Darren Kirsop-Frearson to the Australian Broadcasting Summit, March 2008)

I have a son - Jackson.

He is 12 years old, just started high school, plays football on a Saturday morning, he has an ever increasing interest in girls, he still loves his mum but is also desperate to be the coolest kid in town. Basically, he is a regular 12 year old boy.

In 10 years time when, (touch wood) he finishes university and launches himself into whatever profession he chooses or, indeed, whoever will have him, he will be the consumer we are planning for today.

Jackson is someone who completes his homework on his lap-top computer. He submits his homework to his school and teacher directly from his computer via our home wireless internet connection.

Jackson's iPod is packed with music, videos, podcasts and vodcasts, the majority of which were obtained free-of-charge from Limewire or some other peer-to-peer download site.

He also has a mobile phone. It has a "father funded" pre-paid SIM card which is used almost exclusively for texting. It also has a standard definition digital TV receiver. It's not DVB-H. It does not get the best reception and struggles to pick up a signal in many locations. But it is TV, it's there, and it is free.
So let's talk mobile television for a moment.

In July 2005, the Bridge Networks launched a trial DVB-H service that was a world leader. This was the first mobile television trial of any standard to include so many "real" live channels, so many "real" consumers and, at 80kw of transmission power, it was the first trial with a "real" coverage area.

Our then government was excited by the prospect of this new technology and made provisions and guidelines to allocate a chunk of spectrum that could be used for mobile television. But, now ...

It would seem that we have ground to a halt whilst the rest of the world is has taken our research and experience, and are bounding ahead with mobile broadcast television and leaving us behind.

There are many standards of broadcast mobile television as most would be aware, but if we take my old favourite, DVB-H, as an example now countries as diverse as Albania to Vietnam are now in a full commercial environment.

Commercial launches also promised for this year include Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland... many European countries. This is interesting because on March 18th the European Union declared it had chosen DVB-H as the mobile television standard and governments were now required to promote DVB-H.

Here is an organisation that represents 27 different countries. That is 27 governments agreeing to a single standard - and not for the first time. Surely we have something to learn here.

Other nations currently trialling the DVB-H technology include Poland. South Africa and Libya. Libya! Gadaffi is likely to have mobile television before we do.
There's been a fair amount of market research around mobile broadcast television by a number of credible companies.

Consultants such Informa claims more than $120 million mobile broadcast television users by 2010, IMS 500 million by 2011 and Frost & Sullivan see it as a $2 billion market by 2010.

These are significant numbers but like any business models, there are some that work and some that don't. Modeo in the US, for example, couldn't make a business in the absence of a single national mobile carrier and struggled with the disparate network of US mobile operators.

Italy's 3Italia, on the other hand, do seem to have found how to make it work. 3Italia launched their service on the back of the 2006 Football world cup.

3italia now offers a basic package of nine channels that you can buy on a daily, weekly, monthly or even 3 monthly basis. This package is mainly made up of News and sports with RAI Uno and RAI Duo - that's their equivalent of ABC1 and ABC2 - for mainstream programming.

However, where the dollars - or Euros in this case - are to be made is in the premium packages.

3Italia offers 3 premium packages that, again, can be bought on a per day, per week, per month or 3 monthly basis.

This time, however, 19 Euros buys me just one channel for a month as opposed to the nine channels I get for the same money in the basic package.

So the ability to potentially earn 19 Euros a month for the basic package, and up to 19 Euros a month per premium channel makes the financial model a lot more attractive.

DVB-H may be the pick in Europe, but much of Asia is looking at, or operating, the DMB standard. DMB is an evolution of the digital audio broadcasting, DAB, standard. The same one we plan to implement here in Australia for our digital radio services. One of the significant countries to adopt DMB is China.

The upcoming Olympic games have been one of the major drivers for implementing a mobile broadcast television system. The plans are to initially have 4 channels in Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai that will cover not only the live events, news and highlights, but traffic around the stadiums too.

The Bridge Networks have been actively involved in the hardware for these services. In Beijing, for instance, we supplied Harris transmitters that are used throughout the network in both liquid and air cooled configurations.

In Beijing right now there are more than 20 million people and they have already bought 80,000 DMB receivers. In Guangdong, which is a province rather than a town, the DMB coverage is more than 80 million people.

This is a staggering number of potential consumers and, as you would imagine, is fuelling its own cottage industry of locally produced receivers and accessories.
Here are a few facts to consider:

• The worlds population is over 6.5 billion.
• Of those 6.5 billion people, more than half of them own a mobile phone.

So, in 2005 Australia was on the leading edge of technology - the bleeding edge if you like - but we paved the way for mobile broadcast television.

Our trial was heralded by the broadcast world - it was awarded by the International Broadcast Convention or IBC - it was praised for its ability to engage the technology partners with the telcos and to secure content without cost from the owners.

But now I fear we are falling behind.

Factors include:

• Uncertainty about licence allocation - Channel A, Channel B, Channel C;
• A lack of co-operation between the interested parties;
• The change in government.
• We need to take the bull by the horns and start planning for the future.
• Mobile Broadcast Television is happening all across the world. It's there, it's real and we are missing out.
• Whatever the appropriate standard for Australia, lets get on with it and stop our continued procrastination.
• Release the required spectrum, form our consortiums and let's get on with it.

The world is changing everyday. Let's jump on now before it is out of reach

Lastly, let's plan for Jackson.

(Text used with permission from Content+Technology Magazine, May/June Issue 2008)