Mobile network operators in Europe called for more spectrum to be made available for the provision of mobile television, echoing one of the findings in the final report of the European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC), an initiative of the European Commission. While the EMBC report highlights the great variety of technical solutions to the provision of mobile broadcast services, such as 3G network-based video streaming, MBMS and DVB-H, DMB and satellite broadcast solutions, it notes that a lack of spectrum could limit the development of some of the new mobile TV platforms available.
“Availability of frequencies and flexibility to allow suitable spectrum to be used for mobile TV have to be addressed as a matter of urgency in order to launch services as soon as possible,” said Kaisu Karvala, chair of GSM Europe, the European interest group of the GSM Association. The provision of DVB-H services, in particular, requires the use of spectrum in the UHF broadcasting band. This spectrum is still heavily utilised in Europe for analogue and digital broadcasting, but some countries have succeeded in freeing up appropriate frequencies and GSM Europe calls on the rest to make their best effort to do so.
“It is important, however, that the availability of spectrum for mobile TV in the UHF band does not compromise the availability of the digital dividend for a wider range of services, including mobile broadband,” Karvala said. GSM Europe believes that part of the spectrum that will be released by the switchover from analogue to digital television should be harmonised as widely as possible for usage across Europe for mobile telecommunications services. “We are at a crucial point in time. The market window is open now, spectrum can feed the evolution of exciting services and innovative technical solutions – for the shorter term as well as for the long run,” Karvala added.
GSM Europe believes that mobile TV could be an important service proposition for the customers of its members. Initial mobile TV commercial offers and trials show sufficient interest from users to justify further development of the services already launched in some countries. Mobile TV services can be offered through a variety of platforms and technologies and increasing convergence allows multiple technologies to coexist in one service proposition. This allows mobile operators to combine different technologies into an interactive mobile TV service.