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European telecoms seek higher frequencies for mobile television

16 February 2007 15:30 (UTC +04:00)

The European telecoms industry is looking for new, higher frequencies to make up for a shortage of airwaves that can be used to watch television on the go, APA reports.
This is likely to lead to rising costs for mobile handset vendors and possibly also for telecoms operators, which will in turn mean higher prices for consumers, hampering the fledgling mobile TV business before it has started to take off.
The largest players in the handset industry, led by top handset maker Nokia, are pushing for a DVB-H standard using broadcasting spectrum, like traditional televisionâ€™s UHF band, for mobile television. But that will not be available across Europe until analogue broadcasts are switched off across the continent around 2012.
Mobile makers and operators are keen to tap the potentially lucrative market for mobile TV, but so far only a few countries have a dedicated spectrum for a mobile TV network.
Researchers at Strategy Analytics expect sales this year of 20 million mobile phones designed to receive TV broadcasts.
Mobile operators hope that additional income from mobile TV services, which may generate another â‚¬5 to &euro10 per month in revenue from each user, will compensate for declining revenues from voice calls.
Many operators already sell mobile television over their third generation networks, but picture quality and the number of channels are limited. Handset industry executives say they hope the take-up of 3G television will get people interested in watching TV on their handsets. /APA/