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Mobile TV Home!

Welcome to the Home for Mobile TV!

Mobile TV based on 3G networks has been with us for a while now. However you are likely to be witness to one of the highest gowth stories as new broadcast technologies based on terrestrial broadcast spread countrywide in 2010.These technologies include MediaFLO, ATSC Mobile DTV and CMMB(China).With nearly a billion Smartphones and iPhones now in use worldwide, we are set for a massive wave in areas of TV channels, content and mobile media.

Mobile TV Service Operators

Watching TV on Your Mobile ( 3G and WiFi)

Videos Featuring Mobile TV on YouTube

FLO TV Recievers

Implementing Mobile TV

ATSC M/H, DVB-H/SH, DMB, MediaFLO, WiMAX,3G Systems and Rich Media Applications

Exclusively dedicated to Mobile TV, this book provides a practical and essential guide for its understanding and implementation. Its key focus is to cover technologies which are seeing large scale rollouts today such as MediaFLO, ATSC M/H and CMMB with an imminent coverage hundreds of millions of users. It is unique in presenting the latest information on the subject in an easy and intuitive manner providing key insights into technologies and how these are implemented. It focuses on mobile content, what makes it work, how it is produced or repurposed, how it can be delivered securely and how it integrates with the mobile and internet domains. Smartphones, chipsets, and mobile software are key enablers of a mobile TV service and are covered extensively. Written with a global perspective, this book takes a detailed look at the networks deployed worldwide with examples and is rich in diagrams providing extraordinary visualization of the new technologies, services and revenue models.
* Starts with basics of multimedia for mobile devices, streaming and mobile media players

*A overview of mobile TV, and multimedia networks worldwide with their unique characteristics
* Covers services in 3G, terrestrial broadcast and wireless networks

* Describes enabling technologies and protocols , spectrum and opportunities for deployment
* Detailed chapters on DVB-H, DMB, ATSC M/H, MediaFLO and 3G technologies for mobile TV
* Content security, conditional access and DRM for the mobile world based on OMA- BCAST Smartcard and DRM profiles
* Handset features for mobile TV and multimedia services

* Roaming and interoperability in multimedia networks

The 2nd Edition of the book is focused on the new services which are rolling out based on ATSC M/H, MediaFLO, CMMB(China) and DVB-SH. Completely revised and updated.

See Details

NAB 2010 to Showcase Mobile DTV Marketplace

As companies get ready to showcase products for NAB 2010 ( April 10-15, Las Vegas), mobile TV is set to show its most spectacular face ever at this premium broadcaster event. There are many reasons for this.

The FLO TV Service, based on MediaFLO technology has now expanded countrywide after spectrum became available in July 2009 following the DTV transition. This has enabled it to expand its footprint in additional markets and cover the whole of United States. It has a host of new receiver devices which will complement its offering, both via the mobile operators i.e. Verizon Wireless and AT&T as well as via FLO TV. This includes handheld MediaFLO receivers which can be bought by users without being linked to a mobile phone.

However the greatest action awaits in the arena of AT&T Mobile DTV for which the recommendations were finally approved in Oct 2009. This NAB is the first major broadcast show to feature new devices and products which follow the ATSC Mobile DTV standards and will form the basis of strong rollouts in 2010 through 2011.In fact the open mobile video coalition ( OMVC), an association of over 800 broadcast stations, which has been the prime mover for the ATSC M/H standards ( now named as ATSC Mobile DTV), together with NAB and product manufacturers is showcasing a Mobile DTV Market Place. The marketplace is also being supported by the consumer electronics association (CEA).The importance of the ATSC DTV marketplace can be gauged from the fact that it is being held at a place no less prominent than the grand lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Centre. What do you need for Mobile DTV to be more prominent?

The strong point of the ATSC Mobile DTV technology is the ability to provide local TV station channels available for mobile devices complete with features such as power saving, mobility and robust reception capabilities. A result of nearly five years of development and drawing from multiple technologies, the standards for ATSC mobile STV now provide an ability to add mobile DTV transmissions at local TV stations without affecting the standard DTV receivers or the need for large capital investments which go in building independent mobile DTV networks.

Most of the ATSC based mobile DTV transmissions will enable broadcasters to provide mobile targeted transmissions many of which will be free to air. This is considered in the industry to be one of the key factors for success as it enables a majority of handsets to be manufactured with tuners inbuilt as a default, rather than customers having to buy a anew handset just to watch mobile DTV.

The technology has already been demonstrated in cooperation with Sprint using Samsung Moment handsets and will now be featured as a ready to go products. The ATSC mobile DTV, is now set to roll out strongly in 2010. It has been a while since the AT&T mobile TV services were launched as also of Verizon based on FLO technology. Since then this broadcast based technology (FLO) has expanded to all markets in USA. However it is set to meet its match in the ATSC mobile DTV which is backed by the open mobile video coalition ( OMVC) and over 800 broadcast stations. It turns out that Sprint is the first new partner for this technology with phones such as Samsung Moment ( see http://mobiletvbook.web.officelive.com/MobileTVonYouTube.aspx). The ATSC mobile DTV which is set to expand through 2010 is set to bring in a new era in mobile TV viewing in the United States. Its USP will be local stations, and mostly free to air broadcast reception.

Visitors to the exhibition will indeed be interested in understanding how this broadcaster driven technology will work in an environment where mobile operators hold the key to what handsets the users can use and which features it can support. Most mobile DTV markets in Europe have seen this facet of Mobile TV, where DVB-H operators ( such as in Germany) handed back the licenses when the mobile operators could not be persuaded to lend their support to a technology which took revenues off their networks and instead chose to go with 3G services supplemented with DVB-T transmissions, normally meant for large screen devices, but for which tuners could still be incorporated in handsets, based on the fact the viewing times are still quite low or that many of the mobile receivers are used in cars as combos of GPS and Terrestrial TV. If this was enough for the woes of technologies such as DVB-H, there has been also a quest to use analog TV tuners. Perhaps taking a cue from this, Telegent systems is demonstrating new chipsets and handsets with analog TV reception ( overcoming many of the initial problems) and also DVB-T( the European and south Asian standard for Digital TV). The new devices support reception of DVB-T/SECAM/PAL/NTSC and are this targeted at all markets. It does not really affect markets in the US where sun has set on NTSC. Visitors to the NAB will be keen to see how the OMVC proposes to handle these issues in the US markets. One solution is of course standalone receiver devices or USB tuners for laptops or notebooks, but the large markets still lie in mobile devices which number over 200 million.

The DTV marketplace is being supported by a host of companies such as Axcera ( for transmission products which help implement the ATSC Mobile DTV technology), Expway for ESG products and a host of others.

While mobile DTV is set to storm the centre stage after the DTV transition, interest is also growing in alternative technologies such as WiMAX, where CLEAR has steadily been growing in more and more markets in the United States and the latest projections of tripling the number of customers in 2010 have astounded the industry observers. This is bound to create of web of WiFi and WiMAX enabled centres, making it possible to access mobile internet content via means other than 3G networks. The support of Comcast and Time Warner lends it great credibility for carrying video and distribution of TV.

Visitors to the NAB are looking an answer to a host of questions which have been faced in Mobile DTV. How do customers such as those of iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android or other devices be brought in the domain of mobile DTV without the change of handsets? Does the answer lie in special devices with external tuners or in universal tuners in all handsets?

The primary issue in case of Mobile TV, and in particular where subscription based TV is concerned has been the availability of handsets widely enough for mobile TV to be practical. Even though there are over 500 million smartphones out in the market today, virtually none of them carry tuners for receiving any transmission of mobile TV. This is partly due to the fact that there have been multiple standards and virtually only one standard for Mobile TV i.e. MediaFLO. The result was that AT&T and Verizon wireless which fronted the development of Mobile TV based on FLO in USA, did it with just a couple of handsets ( such as LG Vu). But this was the case only till 2009. Late in 2009, the standards of ATSC Mobile DTV have been adopted, which are likely to change the scene completely.

In complete contrast is the case for Mobile TV in Japan and Korea, where it is free to air. In Japan, virtually all handsets now come with an ISDB tuner ( the Japanese standard for TV) built in for mobile TV reception. The result? More than 80 million devices have been shipped with mobile TV tuners. In Korea, nearly 20 million handsets have been shipped with DMB-T tuners, the standard for mobile TV in Korea.

USA is now ripe for mobile TV rollout on two counts. First, the ATSC Mobile DTV based networks will roll out strongly in 2010 through 2011, prompting more and more handsets to come out with built in tuners. Secondly, MediaFLO which now has a countrywide footprint with availability of spectrum is also widening its offerings including standalone receivers.

The situation can change quite dramatically before we close 2011 with mobile TV capable handsets being used much more frequently and casually than can be envisaged today.

The Conference super-sessions will also feature mobile technologies and content production extensively with April 13 Keynote ( Mobile TV: Ready for Prime Time? ) by Saul Berman and Gary Arlen , April 14: Multi-platform: Taking Content to the Next Level(Anthony Zuiker, Chris Wagner and Josh Walker) amongst others.

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Second Edition: Come In After Success of the First Edition

The first edition of the book "Mobile TV" was the first such book to comprehensively cover the the entire range of topics to mobile TV: from mobile media formats, broadcast platorms and handset features. It also covered mobile content and interactive services.

Also by the Author

Mobile Broadcasting with WiMAX

Amitabh Kumar is the Director Corporate, responsible for Technology for the Zee Network, one of the largest TV networks in Asia with over 50 channels broadcast worldwide. He is also responsible for technology in Dish TV in India with over 6 million customers. He has rich experience in the Telecommunications and Media fields. His earlier role was as Director of Operations VSNL, India’s International carrier where he was the key person driving the growth of Internet in India.

Smartphones and Mobile TV: What has changed in 2010?

The last two years have shown a sharp growth in the use of smartphones and it seems likely that a major change in user behaviour is underway. More than 500 million smartphones are in use toady with capabilities to access internet via 3G, WiFi or other networks. More and more users are using the handsets to search the internet (say by using google mobile, Bing , msn or yahoo), look for offers for travel, weather information, food outlets or use webmail .Most mail sites such as hotmail or live! have mobile versions now. Teens also use it extensively for social networking such as on sites like Facebook, Flickr! , LinkedIn, Twitter, itsmy.com etc. They also use it for sites relating to sex, stream videos and use MMS extensively. Smartphones are also being increasingly used for location based services such as using Mapquest, Google Maps, SirF Atlas and others. Browsing sites such as amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, taking part in online auctions, using chatrooms are also common applications. It is expected that over 1 billion smartphones will be in use by end of 2010, with a significant number being driven by markets in US, Europe, China and India.

Mobile TV whether delivered as streaming video or via a terrestrial media therefore does not always imply buying an expansive phone. Most 3G phones support streaming video and as terrestrial networks become popular, more and more smartphones come with terrestrial tuners built in. In Korea and Japan, a majority of handsets now have a tuner for T-DMB or ISDB-T built in, both of which are free TV services for mobiles. In China, where the number of cities from where mobile TV based on CMMB is offered have jumped to 190 within a year of commercial drive and every new 3G handset to receive government approval must have a CMMB tuner. These three countries today have more mobile TV users than any other country owing to this simple reason. Mobile advertising, so far small is also expected to pick up as the smartphones go beyond a critical mass of 1 billion.

It is imminent that with falling prices of devices like multimedia processors, the smartphones will tend to largely replace the use of the desktops as the medium for access to information, social networking as well as doing daily tasks such as checking mail, making reservations and secure banking transactions because these devices have better embedded security cores and malware is more difficult to propagate owing to the limited resource set and processing capabilities of these devices.

To the industry, the realization that the mobile devices should be considered as THE primary media rather than an extension of desktop experience came rather late. The initial mobile devices had browsers which could view regular websites ( even via multiple screens) while development of websites specifically for mobile devices was rather slow. This accounts for relatively few websites designed for mobiles even as most biggies such as google, gmail , amazon , YouTube or e-bay have now dedicated sites for mobiles.

The launch of Twitter where the maximum size of the message is only 140 characters and where you can even shorten the website references you give in this short message is an indicator of how applications will completely transform to serve the mobile smartphone world. Twitter, for example can potentially reach all the handsets ( smartphones or not) with a potential reach of over 5 billion users. Sites such as itsmy.com are other examples which are designed for mobiles and desktops are an extension rather than being the other way around.

There is now a scramble in the industry to enable virtually all websites, whether these are for auctions, news, travel, weather, streaming videos( e.g. DivX mobile or Flash Lite),providing game downloads, music stores, internet radios, freeware and downloads specially for mobiles. Application shops for mobiles, which rarely sold a few thousand applications now sells millions ow downloads. For example, the iPhone application shop ( iTunes ) has over 100,000 applications developed by over 125,000 developers, and had seen millions of downloads since its launch in Feb 2009. And this is only one of the application stores. There are over a hundred others including application stores from Nokia, Orange, Sony-Ericsson, RIM( Blackberry) and others.

Guess which TV players had one of the largest downloads? It was the TVUplayer for iPhones and iPods. These trends have set a scramble for mobile players and even Microsoft has announced Silverlight for Mobiles. Guess where the action is for development of gaming? It is for mobile games including multiplayer mobile games. Websites are coming up with free stuff for mobiles including wallpapers, screen savers, ringtones and free mobile websites for individuals or companies. Employment websites such as monster.com, Mp3 download websites and popular search engines are now targeting the use by mobile devices.

Mobile TV is one of the applications which now exists on the smartphones together with a host of others which enable navigation, multimedia, and secure shopping. It is no longer an isolated application requiring a separate handsets which users would rather ignore. As services based on terrestrial broadcasting such as MediaFLO ( AT&T and Verizon) and ATSC M/H roll out, multi-standard tuners are likely to become popular in most phones.

The mobile operators initially tried to provide locked phones, secured application downloads and firewalled websites but the launch of newer and newer devices with open systems such as Android has finally put the fear of God and they have decided to go with the FLO. Vonage, for example, became available for mobiles using Wi-Fi, bypassing the cellular networks. In CTIA wireless, AT&T announced opening up its mobile network for applications such as VoIP ( Skype, Vonage,Gtalk etc.). Even the iPhone application store has now an application for Vonage mobile.

A new frontier is now being launched as Comcast and Time Warner start broadband operations using WiMAX. This will provide an alternative to Wi-Fi with high sustained data rates which can support video.

Mobile Video is now riding on a massive wave, which is transforming the way the net is accessed and media is delivered. Almost all popular channels already have their mobile versions such NBC mobile or ESPN mobile and are available via 3G as well as terrestrial broadcast networks. It is now amongst a community of over 500 million devices which can be potentially addressed. Technologies such as FLO TV are set to reach over 200 million users by end of 2009.

The new medium is now already on a path to becoming universal, even though some of the users may start seeing more of it by end of 2009 or early 2010 when more stations with ATSC and FLO go on air and as HSPA networks from major carriers roll out with greater speeds. It will be imperative for all businesses big or small to target the new world through mobiles as they started doing through internet a while back. A lot of content and applications are right now being repurposed. But one thing is certain – the future growth of mobile TV and video is set to surprise most people.