Diverse Group Of Wireless Companies Announces Support For DVB-H Standard

Las Vegas -- At NAB today, a number of players in the wireless industry announced support for DVB-H (digital video broadcast - handheld), an open industry standard for the delivery of mobile broadcast digital TV (DTV) for the U.S., European, and Asian marketplaces.

DVB-H is experiencing broad support across the wireless ecosystem, including partners and competitors alike, who are working together to foster competition and innovation for the growing digital TV market. Such companies include wireless operators such as O2; multicast network operators such as Crown Castle Mobile Media; wireless infrastructure providers such as UDcast; handset manufacturers such as Nokia; software stack providers such as Silicon & Software Systems (S3); and semiconductor providers such as DiBcom, Freescale, Intel, Microtune, S-Communications, Texas Instruments (TI), and TTPCom. Each of these companies, plus many others worldwide, is putting support behind DVB-H in efforts to provide an open environment for mobile operators and broadcasters to reach the largely un-tapped but promising digital mobile TV market.

DVB-H is an open, non-proprietary standard that will foster growth throughout the wireless market, allowing mobile DTV handsets and services to reach the mass market faster and at a lower cost to consumers. Additionally, DVB-H delivers an improved end user experience over current video streaming services that utilize cellular networks and reduce network capacity for voice services. Broadcast digital TV for mobile phones is a large opportunity for operators, broadcasters, handset manufacturers and silicon providers as it opens up new opportunities and provides additional users and revenue-generating services for digital TV services.

DVB-H trials are underway in the U.S., Germany, France, UK, Finland, Sweden, and other countries, with more trials expected to launch later in 2005 and throughout 2006. Wider roll-out of DVB-H services is expected in 2006 and throughout 2007. In the U.S., DVB-H will be deployed using clear and "ready-for-use" spectrum that is available today, without interfering with existing analog TV stations or other TV or wireless services.

With DVB-H, consumers will be able to watch TV shows, sporting events, news, and programming in real-time using their mobile phone at speeds comparable to watching their TV at home. To support the increasing consumer appetite for mobile TV without sacrificing battery life or voice call availability, DVB-H uses a technology called "time slicing" to enable up to eight hours of TV time on one battery charge. DVB-H's "time slicing" technology only provides information required for the one channel of content currently being watched which reduces power consumption and saves battery life. Since it is currently assumed that users will only "snack" on 15 to 20 minutes of TV programming at a time to catch up on news, sports, weather, major news and sporting events, and more, the battery life enabled by DVB-H will deliver support for voice usage and TV "snacking" throughout the day.

"Open standards are expected to fuel innovation and growth in the mobile Digital TV market just as they did in the wireless voice market," said Michael Schueppert, President of Crown Castle Mobile Media. "We are pleased to see the broad and innovative support DVB-H is garnering as we continue to implement our business plan."

Source: Texas Instruments, O2, Crown Castle Mobile Media, and UDcast