[opendtv] Mobile TV jitters
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:53:16 -0500
Two articles about a "malaise" in mobile TV.
I think the most obvious is being missed: assuming it is convenient to
watch video while on the move, which in certain limited circumstances it
might be, e.g. on public transportation, mobile video devices that are
convenient to carry have tiny screens. Tiny screens are no fun. A fellow
bus rider on my route carries along a Mac laptop regularly. That screen
would in principle be big enough for mobile video. But what a cumbersom
nuisance it is to watch.
They mention what I consider secondary causes for the slow uptake, like
loud conversations around you, as if those would not equally hamper
mobile audio. Yet, mobile audio works fine. Earphones usually take care
of loud conversations, and they would work for mobile video too.
This all sounds like the same cycle we undured with the overly-hyped
interactive TV of a few years ago. So much hype, and the hype takes on a
life of its own. You hear about these things so much before they even
prove themselves that you start believing they already succeded.
Bert
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Consumers lukewarm on mobile TV
David Benjamin
(02/12/2007 6:23 PM EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197005486
BARCELONA, Spain - The Chief Marketing Officers Council (CMO), in a
Monday (Feb. 12) forum at the 3GSM World Congress provided a snapshot of
both the potential and difficulties facing the annual trade show's
current pet technology: mobile television.
The biggest issue is that global market penetration for mobile TV stands
at only 7 percent.
That level of popularity places mobile TV in next-to-last place among
all existing mobile services, behind gambling (8 percent) but ahead of
the cellar dweller, video-sharing (4 percent).
Perhaps worse news for mobile TV came from David Willan, chairman of
Circle Research in the U.K., who cited a recent survey by saying,
"Mobile TV has currently relative low usage and what I would call
average potential."
By contrast, Willan noted that three of the four most popular mobile
services currently available to cellphone subscribers-SMS, MMA and
SMS/MMS alerts-involve text-messaging. Some 81 percent of all users
surveyed said they use SMS. Another 40 percent use MMS services and 35
percent SMS/MMS alerts. The second commonest service, at 56 percent, is
content downloads.
According to Willan, the strongest future potential in mobile services,
beyond texting, is for e-mail, following by IMS and Web-browsing. In the
area of future potential, Mobile TV doesn't crack the Top Ten, coming in
eleventh behind gambling. Counseling caution, Willan said, "Let's not
forget the experience of other new technologies that have failed in the
past&#!51;and I'm thinking specifically about WAP phones."
Offering a counterpoint to Willan's lukewarm outlook, Roy Bedlow, vice
president and general manager of Palm EMEA, suggested that solving
ease-of-use problems for consumers can dramatically alter the potential
for new technology wrinkles like mobile TV. He offered the example of
wireless e-mail, which is available on 62 percent of current mobile
devices but which is only used by 15 percent of subscribers.
Bedlow said the Palm Treo has simplified the e-mail function to a single
click, resulting in a three-fold expansion of usage. "We have to
ensure," he concluded, "that we can provide a richer user experience
without increased user effort."
Indeed, this might have been the theme of the mobile TV forum, during
which CMO Vice President Brian Regan previewed a forthcoming CMO survey
of some 15,000 mobile service early adaptors in 40 countries. Calling
this study "the broadest look yet into the psychographics of the
consumer," Regan detailed the "buttons" marketers can push, as well as
the "pain points, irritants and aggravations" consumers suffer at the
hands of service providers device manufacturers and retailers.
Among the familiar complaints were cost of service, insensitive
retailers who know little about products, "upsell" aggressively and then
ignore post-sale service, short battery life, loud conversations by
other users and the tendency of mobile devices to disconnect abruptly.
Regan emphasized, above all, that before service providers rush into
areas like mobile TV, they need to assure that consumers are more
comfortable and "secure" in the basic services they already use-or don't
use.
On the cost issue, Willan offered survey data that users much prefer a
monthly charge over pay-per-view. He added that the optimum monthly
charge would be 10.60 euros, (about $13.80), and that consumers would
have the most tolerance for a five-minute pay-per-view charge of one
euro ($1.30).
Both Willan and Regan offered one firm caveat to their overall findings.
The data doesn't apply equally everywhere. "There are significant
country-to-country differences," said Willan, "in terms of usage, in
terms of different programming choices." This even applies, added Regan,
to users' pet peeves. In most countries, "other people's loud
conversations" are not regarded as especially troublesome, he said,
"except in the United States."
All material on this site Copyright 2007 CMP Media LLC. All rights
reserved.
------------------------------------------
ST delays mobile TV project
Junko Yoshida
(02/13/2007 10:10 AM EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197005652
BARCELONA, Spain - STMicroelectronics disclosed Tuesday (Feb. 13) that
it will delay development of its DVB-Handheld mobile TV chip.
Describing the current mobile TV market as "still uncertain," ST
executives declined to predict when in the future its mobile TV chip
solutions might be ready. ST promised a year ago at the 3GSM World
Congress here that its DVB-H-based chip would be ready by the beginning
of 2007. Asked about the delay, Leon Cloetens, group vice president and
general manager of ST's connectivity division, said it has instead been
focusing on products such as Bluetooth/FM radio/WLAN combinations.
He insisted, however, that it's not abandoning the project. "This
[mobile TV] is still the market we want to play," said Cloetens.
Further defending the DVB-H delay, he said the fragmentation of mobile
TV market-both in terms of standards and markets-is "causing the delay
of the mobile TV market as a whole," thereby justifying the company's
move.
Even here in Europe, DVB-H is still in the embryonic stage. Will
Strauss, president of market researcher Forward Concepts, (Tempe, Ariz.)
noted: "The mobile TV market will start this year [and] ST has got to
get in line."
By the time ST enters the market, it's likely that competitors will have
completed work on a multi-standard mobile TV chip, which represents a
step beyond the single-standard DVB-H chip currently gathering dust on
ST's drawing board.
Qualcomm, for one, is working on what the company claims the Universal
Broadcast Modem chip, that supports MediaFLO, DVB-H and terrestrial
ISDB-T.
All material on this site Copyright 2007 CMP Media LLC. All rights
reserved.
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