Mobile Broadcast TV Users in Korea Reach 11 Million

Telecoms Korea reported yesterday that as of February 29th 2008, the number of satellite DMB subscribers reached 1.31 million, and the number of terrestrial DMB users reached 9.69 million, giving a total of 11 million mobile broadcast TV users in Korea (I am using the term "users" for T-DMB since it is a free-to-air service, and not a subscription service).

Monthly sales of T-DMB devices are in the range of 400-500K a month, meaning that by the end of March the number of T-DMB users alone will pass the 10 million mark. S-DMB growth is not reported in the article, but it seems that S-DMB has stalled in Korea since similar numbers were reported at the end of 2007.

Russian Commercial DVB-H Service expected in 2008

According to a source quoted by Cellular News, Sistema Mass Media subsidiary Digital Television Broadcasting is acquiring mobile TV frequencies in 16 Russian cities, and plans to launch a commercial service in 2008, in time for the Beijing Olympic Games. It is not clear accoridng to the report whether this will be a DVB-H or T-DMB service, but the service will be launched in collaboration with SK Mobile of Korea T-Systems from Germany. The service will initially include eight channels, and will cost between $5 to $15 a month. By 2010, the company plans to have over 500,000 subscribers.

DVB-H and T-DMB Chip Vendors Reach One Million Mark

In two separate announcements this week, DibCom claimed that it had shipped over 1 million DVB-H chips, and Frontier Silicon announced shipment of 1 million T-DMB chips. The chips are powering handsets by Samsung and LG used in the initial launches of T-DMB in Korea, Germany and China, and DVB-H in Italy and Finland. This significant milestone marks the beginning of the early market phase for Mobile TV adoption, which according to several industry estimates is expected to reach over 1 million subscribers this year, and over 100 million subscribers by 2010.

BBC and ITV Launch Mobile TV Trial in the UK

tThe Observer posted an exclusive report today claiming that BBC and ITV will join forces in a six month mobile broadcast TV trial which will be held in the UK, based on DAB technology. The observer claims that the companies will announce the trial tomorrow, in conjunction with several partners including Samsung, LG, MTV and Cartoon Network. The report does not state whether the trial is based on the T-DMB technology, which is used in MFD's commercial mobile TV service in Germany, or DAB-IP technology, which was used in the trial held earlier this year in the UK by BT Movio and Virgin Mobile.

Germany Launches Two Mobile TV Networks

Days before the FIFA World Cup, Germany has launched two separate mobile broadcast TV networks that will offer content from the games as well as other TV and radio channels.

The first service is based on T-DMB technology, and was launched by mobile operator Debitel and broadcast service provider MFD. The service will use the Samsung SGH-P900 and LG-V9000 handsets, and will be available initially in 5 German cities: Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. Later this month, the service will spread to more cities including Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg and Hanover. At launch, 4 TV channels will be available: ZDF, MTV, N24 and a channel produced by PRO7. The monthly fee which Debitel plans to charge for this service is 9.95 Euros.

The second service, still in a trial stage, is based on DVB-H technology, and was launched by Germany's four major mobile operators: T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and E-Plus. The trial is being held in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Hanover, and will continue until the end of August. The content for the trial includes two national TV channels, ARD and ZDF, and 16 radio channels.

Qualcomm Introduces Multi-Standard Mobile TV Receiver

Qualcomm announced today that it is developing a mobile broadcast TV receiver chip that will support DVB-H, ISDB-T and MediaFlo. Samples of the chip, called UBM (Universal Broadcast Modem), will be available in the first quarter of 2007.

This is the first announcement of a mobile TV receiver chip that will support 3 completely different standards. Siano Mobile Silicon announced yesterday at Computex Taiwan that its SMS1000 mobile TV receiver chipset is the world's first solution which supports DVB-T, DVB-H, T-DMB and DAB-IP, and is already in production. Frontier Silicon, which currently has DAB and T-DMB chips available, announced that its Paradiso FS1030 chip will support both T-DMB and DVB-H, but did not announce when it will be available. TI, on the other hand, has two separate versions of its Hollywood mobile TV receiver: DTV 1000 for DVB-H, and DTV 1001 for ISDB-T.

The variety of standards for mobile TV seems like a market reality, with no clear winner in the next few years. While some standards are geographically focused (such as ISDB-T in Japan and S-DMB in Korea), others will be implemented globably, and in some cases two or more standards will be implemented in a single country. For example, the UK will have both DAB-IP and DVB-H, Germany will have both DVB-H and T-DMB, and the USA will have both DVB-H and MediaFlo. The global fragmentation of mobile TV standards will ultimately lead to strong demand for multi-standard mobile TV receiver chipsets.

Mobile TV Chip Roundup

The CTIA Wireless show this week has prompted a series of announcements regarding mobile TV products, including several updates on the chip front. TI has demonstrated their "Holywood" DTV-1000 single-chip demodulator/tuner on Modeo's DVB-H network, coupled with the OMAP 2420 application processor running PacketVideo's Windows Media codecs and DRM, and S3's DVB-H protocol stack. Philips introduced the rival BGT216 DVB-H module, which measures just 7x7 mm and will be available in early 2007. ADI announced a few T-DMB design wins in Korea, running the T-DMB demodulation processing on a Blackfin DSP. And mobile TV chip vendor Siano Mobile Silicon announced the completion of its $23M financing round, lead by Bessemer Venture Partners .

Mobile TV Device Update

A lot of news coming in on mobile TV handsets in the last few days, mainly due to the CeBIT 2006 exhibition which opens today. EE Times reports that Kitae Lee, president of Samsung Telecommunications, opened CeBIT today with a prediction that the global mobile TV handset market will reach about 6 million units this year, and that Samsung plans to grab 20% of this market.

Samsung is also showing an "Ultra-Mobile PC" (UMPC) device at the show, the type of device that caught the industry's attention in the last few weeks under the code name "Origami". According to a report by Engadget, Samsung's device will have an optional DMB (and eventually DVB-H) expansion module.

LG announced their first commercial T-DMB phone for Europe, which will be released first in Germany during May of this year. The device features a rotating 2.2" LCD screen, and claims a 3 hour battery life while viewing TV broadcasts. Two other mobile TV handsets which will be shown at CeBIT are the Sagem myMobileTV and the BenQ DVB-H phone.

3GSM 2006 Mobile TV Update - Part 2

The stream of mobile TV announcements at 3GSM 2006 in Barcelona continues, with Nortel announcing its mobile TV solutions over HSDPA, MBMS and DVB-H networks. T-DMB keeps gaining momentum in Europe, with Samsung announcing that it is working with Bouygues Telecom, TF1 and VDL on a T-DMB trial in France that will start at the end of this month. Samsung is not betting on T-DMB alone: At 3GSM, Samsung is demonstrating 7 different Mobile TV handset models, supporting various combinations of T-DMB, S-DMB, DVB-H and MediaFlo. Samsung also surprised the mobile TV chip industry with an Announcement of its own DVB-H front-end solution, comprising of an RF CMOS tuner chip and a DVB-H Channel decoder which also support DVB-T.

While Samsung is a new player in DVB-H chips, DiBcom which is one of the more established players announced a joint reference design with NDS which implements Conditional Access for DVB-H receivers, complaint with the DVB CBMS standard. And still on the mobile TV chip front, Philips introduced the new version of their DVB-H receiver chip, which includes a tuner and a demodulator in a 7x7 mm package.

If we didn't have enough mobile TV standards already, Alcatel is proposing a combination of satellite-based and terrestrial-based DVB-H mobile TV broadcasting in the S-band, which is supposed to enable re-use of existing 3G base stations, and solve the frequency allocation problems of DVB-H in Europe. Interesting concept technically, but pulling together the whole value chain to support it (satellite operators, handset vendors, other network equipment vendors) will be quite difficult.

Stay tuned for more mobile TV news from 3GSM 2006...

Mobile TV Chip Market Heating Up

There is definitely increased activity in the market for chips that support the various mobile TV standards, with Frontier Silicon announcing its Kino-2 chip which supports T-DMB and DAB, and Newport Media raising $25M from investors to develop a mobile TV receiver that will support T-DMB, DVB-H, ISDB-T and MediaFlo. This follows two other annoucements this week: DibCom's chairman disclosing that Cingular is evaluating products based on its chip for use in the US market, and Microtune announcing that it is starting to ship a DVB-H tuner. Also check out the CommsDesign article published today which discusses the conformance of the various DVB-H chips to the MBRAI specs, and if you read hebrew, there were an article published in The Marker last week about DVB-H chip vendor Siano Mobile Silicon, including an interview with their CEO Alon Ironi.

Expect a lot more to come next week during 3GSM in Barcelona - I will keep you posted...

Samsung T-DMB Phone for Europe

Samsung has announced a T-DMB phone for Europe which will be launched in time for the FIFA world cup in Germany this June. The phone has an Electronic Program Guide (EPG), analog video output (TV out), and a built-in Personal Video Recorder (PVR) for recording mobile TV programs. The phone also features a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, Bluetooth and USB connectivity. According to an article published in the Korea Herald yesterday, Samsung will export its T-DMB phone to Germany from April of this year.

T-DMB Trial in India

Following the announcement regarding the launch of T-DMB services in China which was covered in a previous post, India now plans to hold a trial of T-DMB technology in Mumbai this month. The trial is conducted in collaboration with the Korean Information and Communication Ministry, which is pushing global adoption of T-DMB technology.

China to Launch T-DMB Mobile TV Service

According to an article in Variety.com, China plans to launch a mobile TV service based on T-DMB technology in April. This follows the announcement from Samsung earlier this month that it will ship 200,000 T-DMB phones to China.

This is the first commercial launch of T-DMB services outside of Korea, although a T-DMB trial has been held in the UK, and a big trial is planned in Germany this June in time for the FIFA World Cup.

Where do we stand today on mobile TV services?

These are pretty exciting times, with live TV services over cellular networks launched by most 3G operators worldwide, from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia to Italy, France, UK and the US. While adoption of these services by consumers has been quite high, market research has shown that viewers don't spend more than 30-40 minutes on average per month watching TV on their mobile phones.

Korea launched two competing mobile broadcast systems in 2005, S-DMB and T-DMB, and Japan will soon follow with the commercial launch of mobile ISDB-T in Q1 2006. Many trials of T-DMB and DVB-H have been performed in Europe and other parts of the world, and this year we are expected to see initial launches of commercial services using one or both of these technologies. The competition between T-DMB and DVB-H in Europe, and the competition between DVB-H and Qualcomm's MediaFlo in the USA, are likely to generate a lot of headlines in 2006.