Features

Mobile TV Subscribers to Jump to 100 Mln by 2010: In-Stat

By Sophia Mayengbam

Mobile television broadcast is set for a massive growth as subscriber worldwide will reach 102 million, a giant leap from 3.4 million, as broadcast continues to be preferred method of access to mobile video for most people.

The study conducted by IT research firm In-Stat said that recognizing that using cellular networks to deliver content that millions want to watch simultaneously requires much greater bandwidth than is currently available, carriers are turning to mobile TV broadcast networks, which have a much lower cost per bit for video delivery.

"The greatest challenge for mobile TV broadcast operators is to acquire the spectrum necessary to offer services," says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. "Spectrum availability may determine which of four standards is chosen, and also impacts the business case for the deployment of a network."

According to another study by ABI Research most markets will not be able to support more than two broadcast networks due to the high cost of building them, and the fact that most markets only have three or four major mobile operators selling wireless services to subscribers.

According the ABI Research study South Korea and Japan are the early adopters, but European and North American markets are not far behind, with three contenders planning to introduce mobile video broadcast services in the United States over the next 12 to 18 months. MediaFLO (Qualcomm) plans to be first off the mark, having announced its intention to launch services in the fourth quarter of 2006; Hiwire (Aloha Partners) and Modeo (Crown Castle) will follow suit in 2007.

Key findings of the In-Stat research are:

There are positives and negatives to each standard, but each has a vendor eco-system behind it to enable deployment today.
2005 was the year of the first deployments, with ongoing trials in many parts of the world.
Mobile carriers, mobile TV network operators, and content providers will soon be testing business models to determine what mobile phone subscribers are willing to pay to watch and what advertisers are willing to pay to reach them.

One of the major booster in the increase of mobile TV subscriptions is world events like the FIFA world CUP. According to a report by analyst group Informa Telecoms & Media the 2006 FIFA World Cup is a major catalyst in the increase in the number of subscriptions.

"This year's World Cup will prove a major catalyst for mobile TV growth. It will give operators a chance to show what they can already do and test consumer demand," said David McQueen, senior analyst and report author for Informa Telecoms & Media.

The report claimed that mobile TV will be adopted at different rates in different regions. Asia-Pacific will lead the way with 95.1 million anticipated subscribers by 2011, followed by Europe with 68.7 million subscribers and The Americas with 9.1 million.


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