[opendtv] Dying is easy, mobile TV is hard
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:19:34 -0400
This article focuses on technical issues of M/H, rather than the user
interest in it. Note the C/N margin quoted for DVB-H is 7-14 dB.
Also, the point is made that in countries where 16-QAM I used for DVB-T,
mobile DVB-T works better than it does in countries which use 64-QAM. I
would add that transmitter power in Germany is higher than it is in
France, which also helps.
Bert
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Dying is easy, mobile TV is hard
Junko Yoshida
(09/09/2008 9:50 AM EDT)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210600476
PARIS - Enabling consumers to watch digital TV broadcasts on cell phones
has never been likened to rocket science. Today, however, long after the
technology became feasible, its success as a business is beginning to
look as far away as a moon landing.
Several new mobile TV broadcasting standard, most prominently DVB-H,
have been tailored for battery-powered handheld devices. Nokia
bankrolled the emerging DVB-H standard.
The European Commissioner for Telecommunications has also weighed in,
earlier this year pushing through legislation that mandated DVB-H as the
continent's official standard for digital mobile television service.
More important, the very idea of mobile TV struck many consumers as a
no-brainer. Everyone knows how to watch TV.
But despite all of DVB-H's inherent advantages, the mobile industry in
Europe is now going back to the drawing board, engaged once more in the
"DVB-T vs. DVB-H" debate.
Pundits are now saying that Germany, once DVB-H's resting ground is
pass. Now, the survival of the DVB-H mobile TV standard is up to the
fickle French.
What's wrong with this picture?
Since a mobile TV fiasco that played out earlier this year in Germany,
the entire industry has begun entertaining doubts that the mobile
industry will ever need DVB-H.
German mobile operators -- Vodafone, T-Mobile and O2 who banded together
and applied for a nationwide DVB-H license but failed in Jan., 2008 --
launched last May a DVB-T mobile handset capable of receiving
free-to-air digital terrestrial television broadcasts.
This end-run by the German operators was a turning point. This move
"entirely bypassed the mobile broadcast value chain," and has drawn the
attention of other European mobile operators "which haven't been able to
deploy mobile broadcast TV services because of a lack of spectrum,
incapacity to obtain a licence, or mobile TV business case skepticism,"
observed Ronan de Renesse, senior analyst at Screen Digest.
After the DVB-H failure in Germany, everyone's attention is now on
France, which is rolling out later this year DVB-H-based mobile TV
services.
"France will be the final litmus test for DVB-H," predicted Alon Ironi,
CEO & President at Siano Mobile. "If it doesn't make it big time there,
I am not sure of DVB-H's future."
Siano (Netanya, Israel) is a supplier of multi-mode mobile TVchips that
include DVB-H, DVB-T and China's CMMB.
France is well on its way to launch mobile TV services. The French media
authority has selected 13 companies from 36 applicants for DVB-H service
to fill 13 available slots.
With its free-to-air DVB-T-based digital terrestrial TV broadcast
signals already available, French cellular operators can offer
DVB-T-enabled mobile phones as an entry-level model to reel consumers
in.
Then, they can market DVB-H as an add-on for better indoor reception and
lower power consumption, for example, explained Azzedine Boubguira, vice
president of marketing and business development at DiBcom (Palaiseau,
France). DiBcom is a chip vendor who pioneered automotive DVB-T market,
and also supplies DVB-H TV tuner/demodulation chips.
As IBC 2008, an international conference for broadcasters and broadcast
technology suppliers, opens its curtain later this week (Sept. 11th),
DiBcom is ready to take on one of the most anticipated questions on the
show floor: "Will DVB-T kill DVB-H?"
DiBcom's white paper
DiBcom's white paper obtained by EE Times emphatically makes a case for
DVB-T/DVB-H peaceful co-existence, with data on DVB-T and DVB-H coverage
performances for several classes of receivers.
The company collected its data using "the Link Budget models" developed
by two independent organizations: Broadcast Mobile Convergence Forum and
Forum TV Mobile, a French industry forum.
According to the white paper, the simulated coverage area over Paris
(measured in covered distance vs. electric field strength) shows that
"'in good indoor,' the covered DVB-H radius improvement is around 137
percent compared to DVB-T."
In a previous comparison in the Berlin area, the data show that the
DVB-H provided only 64 percent improvements in "good indoor."
The difference, concluded Boubguira, comes from the fact that Germany
uses a 16-QAM 2/3 modulation scheme in its DVB-T broadcasting, while
France has adopted DVB-T 64-QAM.
The white paper said: "The feasibility of receiving mobile TV in DVB-T
is much easier in countries using 16-QAM (Carrier-to-noise ratio in the
range of 17-23 dB), while DVB-T 64-QAM is not perfectly suited for
mobile TV reception (C/N in the range of 21-29 dB), except if diversity
mode is used."
In sum, "One cannot make a universal DVB-T vs. DVB-H decision for mobile
TV. It's a choice that needs to be made on a country-to-country basis,"
said Boubguira.
DiBcom, whose DVB-T chip got designed into LG's DVB-T handsets in
Germany, acknowledged that the main attraction of DVB-T is free-to-air
TV.
But the company also stressed in its white paper that DVB-H brings "many
other benefits." They include: deep indoor reception (C/N in the range
of 7-14 dB thanks to Multiprotocol Encapsulation - Forward Error
Correction, and denser infrastructure); reception at high speeds;
interactivity; and low power consumption for longer battery life (five
to seven hours in DVB-H due to the mobile TV standard's time slicing
feature, instead of three to four hours in DVB-T).
Does DiBcom make a strong case for DVB-H vs. DVB-T?
Technically, yes. But its argument noting that "DVB-H offers an
opportunity to gain new revenues by delivering existing and
mobile-specific content" may fall flat among operators in the real
world.
Boubguira pointed out that a French operator is planning to charge a
"three to six euros per month subscription fee" for DVB-H-based pay TV
content.
That may be reasonable compared to past commercial mobile TV deployments
elsewhere. And maybe not.
Figuring out a mobile TV business model turns out to be one of the
hardest chores this industry has ever tackled.
DiBcom's Boubguira himself summed it up. "Mobile TV is not easy. It's
got all the components for complications including frequency, spectrums,
money, regulations and infrastructure."
All materials on this site Copyright (c) 2008 TechInsights, a Division
of United Business Media LLC. All rights reserved.
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