EU seeks to dominate mobile TV market with single standard

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission sought Wednesday to boost Europe's chances of dominating the emerging market for mobile television technology by pushing for a single European standard.

The European Union's executive arm said it would include the DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, technology on its list of standards in order to encourage its use across Europe.

If DVB-H, which allows videos to be played over mobile telephones and other handheld devices, is slow in being taken up, the Commission could then make it the sole European standard in 2008, thereby requiring technology companies to use it.

EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding hopes that by adopting a single standard Europe will get an edge in the new technology like it did when the GSM standard for mobile telephones emerged at the end of the 1980s.

"We can either take the lead globally -- as we did for mobile telephony based on the GSM standard developed by the European industry -- or allow other regions take the lion's share of the promising mobile TV market," she said.

The European Broadcasting Union, an industry association, gave a cool reception to the Commission's plan, saying that companies should be allowed to develop devices using whatever standard proves most popular with consumers.

"Technology alone will not decide the future of mobile TV," said EBU president Fritz Pleitgen. "New devices will not be attractive unless they can show what the audience wants to see."

Which standard is taken up could have huge consequences for the industry, with the market for mobile TV estimated to be worth 20 billion euros (28 billion dollars) by 2011 and reaching 500 million viewers worldwide, according to the Commission.

Next year is seen as pivotal to the success of mobile television in Europe depending on whether viewers chose to use their mobile phones to tune into the European Football Championship and the Summer Olympic Games.

If Europe is going to be a leader in the technology it will have some catching up to do because mobile television services have been available in the United States from 2003 and from 2005 in South Korea.

In Europe, such services are only available in Finland, France, Germany and Italy.

So far the technology has had the most success in South Korea where the market penetration rate reaches 10 percent, compared with only one percent in Italy, where it is most developed in Europe.

Currently, there are so far three main mobile television standards.

In addition to DVB-H, US technology company Qualcomm has developed a standard known as MediaFLO while DMB is widely used in South Korea.

EU Strategy for Mobile TV - Frequently Asked Questions