Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands are expected to launch their national mobile TV services in the coming weeks, according to several analysts. These will join the services already in place in Finland, the UK, France, Germany and Italy, where mobile TV made its EU debut in 2006.
Mobile TV services already represent a mature market in Eastern Asian countries, in particular in South Korea and Japan, and the Commission wants the EU to follow suit. Indeed, the EU executive considers mobile TV as a “great business opportunity” but also a means to increase the use of cross-border TV programs, according to Bernd Langeheine, Director of Electronic Communications Policy at the Commission.
Brussels is thus doing everything in its power to pave the way for the take-off of the new service. After agreeing on a common EU technological standard for mobile TV and informally reserving parts of the very coveted UHF band for mobile broadcasting (see the background), the Commission will now soon come up with a set of guidelines to advise national regulators.
Brussels will suggest avoiding regional regulations, as is taking place in Germany, arguing that fragmenting the national market hampers the development of emerging TV mobile services. “We are definitely in favour of a one-stop-shopping system”, said Langeheine during a conference on mobile business organised in Brussels by the Financial Times.
The official added the Commission will propose that national regulators take into account all the different actors interested in the mobile TV business, including Telecom operators, TV broadcasters, pay-TV services providers. The Brussels Executive will also discourage the adoption of must-carry obligations, which force transmission networks to guarantee access to certain broadcasting channels, usually public.
Such must-carry obligations are in place in analog TV systems, but can be progressively phased-out with the advent of digital television which allows a higher level of competition. Mobile TV is considered a nascent market and the Commission proposes the lightest possible regulation.
