Around the world of mobile television
The mobile TV broadcast market is expanding as services were commercially launched in more countries in 2006. A few more launches are expected in 2007, but unavailability of spectrum is the largest barrier to more mobile TV services, according to In-Stat, a high-tech market research firm. Over the next few years, the situation will change. The standards for mobile TV broadcasting continue to expand. There are commercial services that use DVB-H, DAB-IP, ISDB-T, TDMB, S-DMB, and MediaFLO operating today. Other possible standards for the future include DVBSH, an improved version of ATSC, and DMB-T/H in China. With so many standards and no clear leader it is difficult for equipment vendors to achieve economies of scale as they currently offer multiple versions of products to serve the market. Most of the mobile TV broadcast services offer only linear TV content. Future plans from service providers include datacasting weather and traffic information, broadcasting to storage on the phone for...