3GSM 2007 Mobile TV Preview

The industry is preparing for this year's 3GSM conference in Barcelona, which will take place from Monday 12/2 until Thursday 15/2. According to a poll by EETimes Europe, mobile TV will be the key topic at 3GSM this year, and indeed several companies are preparing to showcase their mobile TV products at the show. These demonstrations will be assisted by a 3GSM DVB-H network operated by Spanish mobile TV technology provider SISDA and local operator Albertis telecom. The network will broadcast 10 mobile TV channels, including MTV, CNBC, CNN and some Spanish TV channels. One of the channels will be 3GSM TV, which broadcasts live news and content directly from the show.

Some of the other demonstrations at the show:

* According to sources quoted by Reuters, Nokia is planning to reveal a mid-range N-Series mobile phone called N77, capable of receiving DVB-H broadcasts. The phone is supposed to be in the 200-300 Euro range, as opposed to Nokia's N-92 DVB-H handset which currently costs over 600 Euros.

* Chinese handset vendor ZTE will demonstrate its own "N-Series" DVB-H mobile phone, the N7100, which is based on Siano's SMS1000 mobile TV receiver chipset. The N7100 handset, which features HSDPA high-speed cellular connectivity, will be distributed in Italy by Telecom Italia Mobile in the next few weeks.

* Mobile TV chip vendor Frontier Silicon and mobile TV software vendor S3 will demonstrate a multi-mode reference design for mobile TV based on Frontier Silicon's FS1030 "Paradiso" moible TV receiver which supports DVB-H, DVB-T, T-DMB and DAB-IP; and on S3's "onHandTV" multi-standard mobile TV client software.

* NEC and Telegent systems will demonstrate a high-definition, low-power mobile TV platform running on NEC's application processor, which allows up to four and a half hours of viewing time.

* TI, Orange and Viaccess will demonsrate content and access protection for mobile TV services, utlizing TI’s M-Shield security framework, which is integrated into the OMAP application processor platform.

* NXP software (formerly Philips Software) will demonstrate a full mobile TV software solution running on TI's OMAPV1030 baseband application processor.

* Ericsson will demonstrate mobile TV using MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), following a successful MBMS trial conducted in 2006. Ericsson plans commercial rollout of MBMS services in 2008.

I'm off to Barcelona tonight, and will do my best to continue and provide mobile TV coverage from the show itself.