20/07/2007

The data on the adoption of mobile TV in Europe is not encouraging. “We risk losing an annual market of €20bn,” said Viviane Reding by way of a warning cry.

The European Commissioner for the Information Society and Media is inviting European industries and governments to get actively involved in the issue, so as to not miss out on the possibility of “becoming the world leaders that they already are in the field of mobile telephones”.

The GSM standard, developed by the European mobile phone industry, is the target model: to this end, the European Commission adopted a reinforcement strategy yesterday for mobile television, suggesting the adoption of DVB-H (Digital video Broadcasting-Handhelds) technology as the Community’s only standard.

The DVB-H, a “made to measure” version of portable DVB-T (terrestrial digital) devices, was invented in Europe by mobile telephony leaders Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia, who this past May 30 wrote an open letter to Reding asking for the acceleration of the adoption of DVB-H.

The goal of the Commission’s pronouncement is to reduce the fragmentation of the continental market by the 2008 European Football Cup, regaining positions within a market that will be worth €20bn by 2011. To reach this goal, the Member States are asked to set aside part of their UHF frequencies for mobile TV.

In terms of the legislative framework that will regulate the television services on a national level, the Commission considers mobile TV a nascent service, and therefore advises the adoption of “light” measures.

Measures that are necessary and urgent: the standard of US Qualcomm marked an important point thank to its adoption by AT&T. There is no time to lose because, says Reding, “mobile broadcasting is an opportunity that could allow Europe to reinforce its leadership in the field of mobile audiovisual technologies and services”.

(Translated from Italian)