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Mobile TV commercial rollout expected in 2008

Indiantelevision.com Team

(7 March 2008 7:30 pm)

MUMBAI: The commercial rollout of mobile TV is expected to happen later this year even as Doordarshan is currently running trials with Nokia in Delhi. The government has asked for white papers from different parties on how to take this forward.

This point was made during the Sixth International Conference on Communications Convergence which was organised by IMC.

Speaking on mobile TV, NMIS University’s Chirag Unadkat said DVB-H is emerging as the preferred standard. The challenge for the other players will be in terrestrial spectrum allocation. Will the government be willing to take some spectrum away from DD and give to other players? The spectrum needed for one DD channel can serve 30 mobile channels, said Unadkat.

There is, however, the regulatory issue. Under whose jurisdiction will mobile television come? Is it the broadcaster or the telecom operator? According to Unadkat, telecom companies will play a supporting role in terms of providing things like billing and logistics support.

Another issue is that there are very few handsets in the country that are equipped to support mobile TV. Such a handset costs around Rs 500 more than an average one, Unadkat explained.

According to a survey done by the NMIS University, 36 per cent will use it as a second TV. They are also willing to pay Rs 1000 for such a service. They are willing to use the mobile to watch television for 75 minutes every day. At the moment though globally no commercial launch has happened. There are several trials going on currently. News, sitcoms and cricket are the genres that are expected to fare well on this medium, Unadkat added.