The European Commission has officially endorsed Digital Video Broadcasting — Handheld (DVB-H) as the mobile TV technology of choice in Europe, and has told member states to “encourage” use of the technology, according to media reports Wednesday.
Tailored to the specific requirements of handheld, battery-powered receivers, DVB-H is an offshoot of the terrestrial DVB-T system already employed by digital-TV broadcasters in Europe.
The EC “is firmly convinced that 2008 is the right time to create conditions favorable to the rapid takeoff of mobile broadcasting,” said EU commissioner Viviane Reding. “Without this certainty and predictability, it will be impossible to invest with confidence in new innovative technologies.”
Spearheaded by Nokia and backed by Motorola, Philips, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, DVB-H is the world’s most widely used mobile-TV spec. Services based on the spec are currently between trials and commercial launches in 16 countries. A commercial service is also in the works for Russia.
However, several key steps are still needed to put DVB-H on the high-growth track. Reding said the main patent holders still need “to finalize an agreement over the licensing terms and conditions and the constitution of the patent pool.”
Digital-rights management systems based on open technologies also need to be finalized, Reding said. “We also cannot allow commercial launches to be delayed because of legal vacuums or overly burdensome regulation,” she added.
The EC estimates the global mobile-TV market could be worth up to 31.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2011, when it is projected to have 500 million subscribers.
“Many other countries worldwide are going to share our choice, and I am convinced that we are going to create a new, immense market for this open technology of the DVB family of standards,” Reding said.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
The European Union on Monday chose a mobile TV broadcast standard and suggested that its member governments now ask cell carriers to favor it.
EU commissioners chose DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, the most widely used mobile TV format in Europe, over rival standards such as Qualcomm Inc.’s MediaFLO and another known as DMB that is favored by Chinese and South Korean manufacturers.
DVB-H is supported by the world’s largest handset maker, Nokia, as well as Motorola, Philips, Sagem, Sony, Ericsson, Samsung and major European cell phone operators Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile. By contrast, Qualcomm’s technology has signed up the two biggest players in the United States — Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
The European Commission said it had to order EU nations to favor DVB-H to create economies of scale and get the nascent technology off the ground.
“They can do that by labeling, they can do that by promoting it in attributing licenses and so on,” said EU spokesman Martin Selmayr.
The EU called on other nations to follow its example.
The EU’s executive is entitled to make decisions on some technical standards on behalf of member governments, which it did, for instance, in pushing the Global System for Mobile communications, or GSM, for mobile phones.
That decision is recognized as leading Europeans to switch to cell phones faster than people in the United States have.
Selmayr said the European Commission believed it was important to forestall a war on standards that could have held back mobile broadcasting in Europe.
The impact of the EU’s choice is limited: EU nations can choose to avoid making decisions favoring the format and are under no obligation to eliminate other standards.
Ovum analyst Matthew Howett said the development and use of other technologies is still possible although EU backing for one standard creates “some certainty” for operators planning mobile broadcasting services and manufacturers making phones and chips.
The EU cited research forecasts of a steep increase in demand for mobile TV in 2009, with the worldwide market reaching $31 billion in sales by 2011.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- March 12th, 2008
- 12:38 pm
Dutch electronics major Royal Philips is set to mark its re-entry into the mobile phone segment with the launch later this month of a range of accessories in India, a company official said. The company will thus tap a higher margin business in the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market a year after selling its mobile business to China Electronics Corporation.
Philips has signed up with Nokia to make accessories supporting Nokia’s music-enabled handsets, Alexander Bakkeren, vice-president and category leader for the mobility segment in Philips Consumer Lifestyle, told ET. “Nokia is by far the market leader in the handset market in India, and hence the decision to enter into an agreement,” he said. Mr Bakkeren said Philips is in further discussions with the handsetmaker for bundling its products with Nokia handsets.
He said that the accessories market in India, estimated to be $100 million, is quite nascent and dominated by unbranded players. “This allows huge opportunity brand like Philips to get an initial advantage in a mobile telecom market that is ready to explode in the next 2-3 years,” he said. He, however, declined to comment on how the foray would contribute to its revenues. The consumer lifestyles vertical contributes nearly 45% to Philips’ overall revenues.
Philips in its quarterly report for Q1 of 2007 had said that it had completed the sale of its remaining mobile phone activities to China Electronics Corporation. As a part of the sales agreement, CEC is allowed to retain Philips’ brand name for the next five years. And now, Mr Bakkeren says that mobile accessories market has better margins to offer as branded players are yet to settle down in this market.
In addition to mobile accessories, Philips is also set to launch accessories to Apple iPods, Nils Leseberg, senior director for strategy and alliances at Philips Consumer Lifestyle told ET. “On an average, every iPod user buys at least two accessories and spending nearly $70 per accessory, presenting a company like us with interesting margins in the business,” he added. The company is also exploring opportunities of launching iPhone accessories and is in talks with both Apple and network providers offering iPhone in Germany, France and the UK for this purpose.
The company had recently bought out US-based Digital Lifestyle Outfitters, which designs and distributes accessories for mobile audio-visual devices such as MP3 players and video players. Philips for its foray into the India market has outlined a roadmap to reach nearly 1,000 cities in the next 2-3 years, initially reaching 60 cities in the first phase of its go to market.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Sharp has announced that it is talking to about 30 countries about its dual-mode mobile TV chip, the . The company touts the chip as a “world’s first” as it is capable of supporting two rival mobile TV standards used in Europe - DVB-H and T-DMB. Sharp plans to increase its production capacity for the chip to 2 million units a month – up from its current capability of around 300,000 units a month.
However, South Korean electronics giant Samsung also has its eyes fixed on that market and even has products already that can beat Sharp’s offering. It has developed a multi-standard decoder, the S3C4F31, and multi-band RF tuner, S5M8602, chipset which supports multiple digital mobile TV standards. At the time, both chips were among the first to use 65nm processing.
The list of supported standards includes both DVB-H (for mobile phones) and DVB-T (regular digital TV) plus T-DMB. It also includes support for DAB-IP which is used in the UK by Virgin for the Movio service and ISDB-T 1, which is popularly known as One-Seg and is used in Japan. Other rivals watching the market include Freescale, Broadcom and Philips.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
- September 29th, 2006
- 10:30 pm
Manufacturer of TFT-LCD panels LG.Philips LCD has developed a TFT-LCD panel which measures 1.3 mm in thickness, including the module. The panel is aimed at slim mobile phones. In addition to its LED backlight technology that can raise the brightness of the panel to 400 nits, LG.Philips LCD used new ultra-thin light guide plate and glass substrate technologies to reduce the panel’s thickness.
Source- http://www.telecompaper.com
Technorati : Handset, LG, Mobile, Philips
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Technorati : Handset, LG, Mobile, Philips
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- September 19th, 2006
- 10:00 am
MANHASSET, N.Y. - Mobile phone display shipments reached 275.3 million main displays and 60.7 million sub-displays the second quarter of 2006, flat with the previous quarter though up 32 percent year over year, according to a report by market research firm DisplaySearch Inc.
Mobile phone display revenue was $2.9 billion, down 5 percent quarter-to-quarter and 4 percent year-to-year, reflecting a 27 percent year-to-year drop in average selling prices.
“Mobile phone display revenue continues to contract due to the year-to-year drop in ASPs, even as the industry continues to shift to active matrix displays with larger average sizes,” said DisplaySearch vice president and analyst Barry Young. However, we expect the ASP reduction to moderate in the next few quarters, allowing revenue to grow with the increase in shipment volume.”
Active matrix liquid crystal displays now comprise 53.7 percent of total shipments, up from 41.7 percent a year ago. By the fourth quarter, active matrix displays are projected to comprise 60.4 percent of mobile phone displays.
Samsung SDI was the leading supplier of color super twisted nematic displays and ranks sixth in active-matrix LCDs. Philips is second in CSTN displays and fourth in AMLCDs. Sharp is the leading supplier of AMLCDs and seventh in CSTNs.
Overall, Samsung led in mobile phone display shipments with 44.9 million, or 16.3 percent of the market, followed by Philips with 32.1 million, or 11.7 percent. Sanyo Epson, Sharp, and Wintek round out the top five
Source- http://www.eetimes.com
Technorati : Mobile, Philips, Samsung
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EU further pushes DVB-H as mobile TV standard
