“Portable TV sets” that worked in the traditional analogue TV network were introduced on the market a long time ago, but the quality of the image was not sufficiently good for mobile use. What was needed is digital TV technology that took into account the special requirements of a small wireless device.
Mobile phone content services are still at an early stage in their development. The road to richer mobile services started with text messages, i.e. SMS (Short Message Service), which could contain a limited amount of text. Soon after that logos and simple ring tones were offered. WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled the provision of new services, but at first the emphasis was on textual contents. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) introduced the possibility of building and sending others presentations that contained short video and sound samples in addition to text and images. With a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) connection you can surf on the Internet and even watch short video clips.
Increasingly fast mobile networks enable you to download sizeable files, and smooth communication by e-mail with file attachments is one of the obvious advantages of 3G, e.g. third generation mobile networks. Many phone models already feature a camera and an FM radio receiver. Up till now the only electronic media missing from the latest smart phones has been mobile TV. In fact, mobile TV is currently one of the hottest issues of the mobile phone sector.
Why is it that mobile TV has only now become a widely discussed topic?
“Portable TV sets” that worked in the traditional analogue TV network were introduced on the market a long time ago, but the quality of the image was not sufficiently good for mobile use. An additional factor is that analogue TV broadcasting will stop in Finland in late summer 2007. The capacity of the current or even the planned 3G networks is not sufficient for full scale TV-type mass broadcasting. DVB-T, i.e. the above ground digital TV broadcasting network does not in its present form meet the special requirements of mobile phones, as the reception is processing-intensive and therefore depletes the battery too fast. A receiver suitable for a mobile phone also suffers from different types of interference much more than a stationary receiver and, for example, requires improved debugging of transmission.Consequently, a new digital TV technology was needed to meet the special requirements of a small wireless device. Applications have been developed worldwide. There are currently three major standards – ISDB-T (Terrestrial Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting) in Japan, DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcast) and its variations in South Korea and DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds) in Europe and the United States. In the US non-standardised applications, like Qualcomm’s MediaFLO, are also available.
