The last two years have been indeed a testing time for mobile TV, but there is now a dramatic change in scenario. A great deal of what the new scenario is will be revealed during the NAB 2010, where a DTV marketplace is being showcased in the Grand lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Centre. Firstly, mobile TV based on MediaFLO ( AT&T mobile TV and Verizon VCAST) has now finally attained coverage of all markets in the United States after availability of spectrum in July 2009, after the DTV transition.It has also been accepted as one of the approved standards in Japan which validates its technology in the largest market in the world and strengthens it to gain in the US as well as South America.
Secondly, it is for the first time now that the broadcasters are getting into the act with ATSC mobile DTV. While all stations under the OMVC forum ( about 800 ) will not get into the act, the fact is that many will and this will bring free DTV to mobile handsets as well as standalone recievers.
We are now entering a situation similar to Japan, where ISDB-T ( one segment) tuners are now found virtually in every phone sold and over 80 million handsets have such tuners built in. This leads to a possible replication of the scenario in US, with mobile standalone and auto recievers added on. The user experience with both ATSC mobile DTV and FLO based TV is much superior as compared to 3G based TV and it is unlikely that customers will not notice the difference or forego the chance to watch local programming.
Secondly, the markets in China are now supporting a very large industry for handsets, Chipsets and multimedia software, which makes it easier for it to target other markets with lower costs.
On the whole, coupled with the economic recovery, rise in Smartphones and availability of free off air services, the year 2010 is likely to show some spectacular developments so far as mobile TV is concerned.
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