Mobile TV Roadblocks
Monday, June 12, 2006
The San Jose Business Journal profiles the Mobile TV market in US. The market predictions point to a multi-billion industry in the next few years, which in turn has fuelled a lot of interest in this segment. Along with Qualcomm's MediaFLO there are three other startups, MobiTV, IPWireless and Modeo vying for the pie. QC has bet big on this market. It has spun off of seperate subsidiary and acquired spectrum as well, something it has never done before. But there are a few things to be sorted out before this technology takes off.
First there are around three competing standards being followed in US, Europe and Japan. Even within US the all the startups are betting on other flavours of standards, including WiMAX! For the early adopters it would mean that the service would not be consistent across the geography. One of the reasons why QC has launched a unified handset chip which supports all the three current standards.
Another issue is the power consumption of the chipsets. Power and heat problems have plauged the third generation mobile handsets. And viewing Telivision for prolonged durations on the handset would eat up a lot into the limitied battery power in the handset. This potentially could leave this technology still-born.
The biggest issue is that its a completely unproven technology. There are several trails going on and as per reports the feedback has been good. Hisotrically market researches have been proven wrong, eg. the case of Software Defined Radio (SDR) market. By now it should have been in our handsets, but that hasnt happened yet! Nobody knows whether Mobile TV will end up being mass adopted. One can only offer views on it.
These problems are inherent to any emerging technology. Any new technolgy which gets introduced into the market goes through an adoption curve which matures it. Once that happens, the most popular technology gains the biggest market share and becomes mainstream. Its an exciting process and to experience it first hand is a very enlightning experience.
So watch this space for further updates!
Previous Posts: DVB-H In India. DVB-H Launches. QC Media.
Update 1: Study points to a rising interest in Mobile TV in Europe.
Update 2: ZDnet Asia says that Asia is a big marketplace for Mobile TV.
Tags: Mobile TV MediaFLO Mobi TV IPWireless Modeo DVB-H QC
First there are around three competing standards being followed in US, Europe and Japan. Even within US the all the startups are betting on other flavours of standards, including WiMAX! For the early adopters it would mean that the service would not be consistent across the geography. One of the reasons why QC has launched a unified handset chip which supports all the three current standards.
Another issue is the power consumption of the chipsets. Power and heat problems have plauged the third generation mobile handsets. And viewing Telivision for prolonged durations on the handset would eat up a lot into the limitied battery power in the handset. This potentially could leave this technology still-born.
The biggest issue is that its a completely unproven technology. There are several trails going on and as per reports the feedback has been good. Hisotrically market researches have been proven wrong, eg. the case of Software Defined Radio (SDR) market. By now it should have been in our handsets, but that hasnt happened yet! Nobody knows whether Mobile TV will end up being mass adopted. One can only offer views on it.
These problems are inherent to any emerging technology. Any new technolgy which gets introduced into the market goes through an adoption curve which matures it. Once that happens, the most popular technology gains the biggest market share and becomes mainstream. Its an exciting process and to experience it first hand is a very enlightning experience.
So watch this space for further updates!
Previous Posts: DVB-H In India. DVB-H Launches. QC Media.
Update 1: Study points to a rising interest in Mobile TV in Europe.
Update 2: ZDnet Asia says that Asia is a big marketplace for Mobile TV.
Tags: Mobile TV MediaFLO Mobi TV IPWireless Modeo DVB-H QC
