The Irish telecoms regulator ComReg will not be proceeding further with a plan to offer a mobile broadcast licence covering five urban areas of the country, stating that following a consultation period, it became apparent to ComReg that use of the identified spectrum to provide a Mobile TV service in Ireland was not the subject of particularly strong interest to potential operators, and interest in the proposed procedure to grant the authorization diminished.

According to ComReg, after seeing further information on interest from stakeholders, it received just one response, from Vodafone Ireland, which agreed with the decision not to go ahead with the plan. The regulator further revealed that it will keep under review the potential for the identification of spectrum which would enable the award of dedicated licences for mobile TV, and that future, technology-neutral awards of UHF spectrum could be used for mobile broadcast services.

The decision further highlights that the lack of success for mobile broadcast services on an international basis, having once been seen as a potential big thing for the industry. The most high-profile failure was Qualcomm’s MediaFLO venture, which is to be closed imminently having failed to become a viable service.

While there have been a number of pilots and commercial mobile broadcast launches globally, these have not led to significant subscriber interest, and in South Korea, which has been something of a market leader, ecosystem participants have struggled to monetise services.

According to research reports, the number of mobile broadcast subscribers will not reach 10 million globally until 2013 at the earliest, at which point more than 180 million subscribers will be accessing multimedia services via 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi networks. Trials are also underway of mobile broadcast technology which is more closely related to mobile standards.