Reports: EU favors DVB-H for mobile TV

The European Commission in a draft statement yesterday apparently favored the DVB-H standard for mobile television in its member countries, according to media reports today.
The draft document reportedly said that DVB-H currently was already the most prevalent standard in EU countries-in contrast to Qualcomm Inc.’s MediaFLO technology and T-DMB used in South Korea-and that encouraging its use would avoid fragmenting the market.
The European Commission sets regulations for the European Union.
The document apparently identified MediaFLO as a proprietary solution in its testing phase, although Verizon Wireless has launched commercial service using the technology and AT&T Mobility plans to launch a service using the technology and network later this year. Qualcomm has MediaFLO trials ongoing in the United Kingdom, according to a spokesman.
“We’re looking for more information,” said Omar Javaid, VP for business development at MediaFLO Technologies, the international arm of the company’s mobile TV efforts. “It’s difficult to comment on something that’s in draft. But it appears as if the EC has declared a winner before the race has started.”
Javaid rejected the EC’s characterization of MediaFLO and said it is an open standard, like other mobile TV technologies on the market. Declaring a standard when spectrum hasn’t been set aside for near-term deployment doesn’t make sense, Javaid said. Spectrum may not be available until the region’s analog networks are switched off in five to seven years, the Qualcomm executive said. That move may free up common UHF bands nationwide within the EU’s member states to devote to mobile TV.
According to Ovum analyst Vincent Poulbere, the EC’s emphasis on DVB-H merely recognizes the market’s choice so far, in that leading network operators in four of the EU’s five largest countries-Italy, France, Germany and Spain-already have selected DVB-H. Poulbere also said that the EU’s lack of available, common spectrum for the DVB-H service made moot the endorsement of a common standard.
“Based on the information we have, the EC’s move does not address this critical issue of spectrum availability and, hence won’t change much (for) DVB-H in Europe,” Poulbere said. “It’s certainly a blow to Qualcomm’s MediaFLO . but we were not aware of a single major European player interested in deploying MediaFLO.”
The European Union favored the GSM air interface in the early 1990s to avoid fragmentation and speed the adoption of mobile services, and that is the prevalent standard in Western Europe today.
Nokia, a major DVB-H backer, did not immediately response to calls for comment.