Monday April 18, 2011 – Shelby Cunningham
Last week at the National Association of Broadcasters Show (NAB Show), U.S. broadcasters and equipment and receiver suppliers trotted out their latest plans for Mobile DTV. While Mobile DTV is still in the earliest stage, it’s time to take a close look at this market that enables the broadcast of local TV broadcast transmissions.
Next up will be informing consumers about the differences between broadcast and unicast mobile TV. “Haven’t cell phone carriers been pushing mobile TV for years?” asks the consumer who may be watching video on their smart phones.
Well yes, but also no. It’s fairly easy to tell the story that mobile TV from local TV stations will deliver different content, but most consumers don’t really care that the programs are broadcast over a local station’s terrestrial network and not over the mobile phone network. The real advantage may actually be to mobile phone operators and ISPs who are experiencing traffic jams on their networks as more and more people expect easy access to bandwidth-eating video.
Broadcast mobile TV is received from a local TV station signal on a cell phone, tablet, netbook or other handheld device. It’s a far more efficient delivery system than that of point to point but it remains to be seen if that part of the mobile TV ecosystem can deliver the content and experience consumers crave. We’re in a brave new world of accessing multiple streams of content on a single device. There’s no reason why this model can’t work for U.S. broadcasters, but they have to get it right – the right content, the right user experience, the right integration into devices, and the right business model.
It’s not exactly a land rush but the broadcasters are now dipping their toes into the water (a few up to their ankles). According to the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) and DTC, there are about 70 stations in the United States currently broadcasting mobile TV channels, with over 100 more stations expected to start airing in 2011.
Source: DTC
There are a few mobile DTV devices on the market at the moment, such as a Dell netbook, laptop dongles, and select Samsung devices. There were also multiple prototypes being shown at NAB, but consumers aren’t seeing a flood of devices that must come to foster adoption of a new technology.
The increase of station adoptions is a good sign, but consumer awareness is another big key. And even though they’re still trying to figure out 3DTV, they can chew on the new mobile TV offerings.
