TV on mobile soon to become a reality

BANGALORE: Want to watch Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin on your mobile? Or the final over of an Indo-Pak ODI cricket match on your cell? That is what today's tech is almost set for. Well, though it may not be a 30-minute programme you see on TV or a entire day of cricket, such programmes are going to be short ones customised for the cellular phone - once the latest broadcast technology comes into full fledged use.Semiconductor firms like Philips, Texas Instruments, Motorola, NEC as well as a handful of startups like Truespan Semiconductor (US), Siano (Israel), Dipcom (France) and Frontier Silicon (UK) are into this new standard called Digital Video Broadcasting for the Handheld (DVB-H). Few months back, TI announced the wireless industry's first digital TV on a single chip, code-named "Hollywood," for cell phones. "This will capture broadcast signals and allow cell phone users to watch live broadcasts ranging from their favourite reality TV shows to major sporting events and breaking news," say TI officials. Research by handset makers shows people would probably watch sitcoms and news or sports programming while commuting. On average, people watch three to 15 minutes. It's typically news or music TV. Very rarely do they want a film, according to a survey report by Nokia. Says Sanjai Kohli, co-founder of Truespan Semiconductor Technologies, a California-based firm which is also working on a chipset for receiving mobile video at its development centre in Bangalore, " Today, what comes on your mobile phones are replays - live TV content is not possible because of the bandwidth requirements. Images jump from one frame to another but once DVB-H comes into play, the user experience is going to be greatly enhanced. Telcom operators believe that this is going to be a killer application. "We feel this could be a killer application. Until now, voice is more than 90 per cent of the cellular usage but things would change dramatically once digital video broadcasting scales up," says a leading cellular operator. Reports indicate that Nokia expects handsets to be available in 2006 that can access 20 to 50 TV channels, while Qualcomm and Sprint are also carrying on pilot tests for live TV content. A recent trial in Germany by Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, and Vodafone, the largest mobile operator, showed 80% of people wanted TV on their mobiles and were willing to pay about $15 per month. Today, a number of content providers are also tweaking content for the small screen type device and time is not too far away when you see a 5-minute sitcom being advertised on your home TV - targetted at the mobile phone user. Users will need to buy a new phone with an additional chipset and an antenna, and more important, operators will have to agree on a revenue-sharing scheme with TV stations. "In the US, revenue sharing is simpler because transmission towers are owned by individual companies like Crown Castle who rent out to cellular operators, whereas in India it is the cellular operators that own these towers. So, when a subscriber has to pay for this premium service, an innovative revenue sharing method has to be devised between the cellular operator, content provider and the technology provider," Kohli points out. Interestingly, last year Nokia, Siemens and Sony Ericsson announced their co-operation in the Mobile Broadcast Services work to bring broadcast services to mobile devices.