Weasel: date=December 2007

Mobile TV is television service delivered to subscribers via mobile telecommunications networks, such as the mobile phone carriers. In 2005, South Korea became the first country in the world to have mobile TV when it started satellite DMB (S-DMB) and terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) service on May 1 and December 1, respectively. Today, South Korea and Japan are at the forefront of this developing sector.Mobile TV services have been launched by the operator CSL in Hong Kong in March 2006 on the 3G network. 3G UK: The service is based on the Golden Dynamic Enterprises Ltd.'s "VOIR Portal" and follows the 3GPP standard 3G-324 M. The same service is also deployed to Philippines in 2007. BT in the United Kingdom was the among the first companies outside South Korea to launch Mobile TV in September 2006, although the service was abandoned less than a year later. The same happened to "MFD Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland", who launched their DMB-based service June 2006 in Germany, and stopped it in April 2008. Also in June 2006, mobile operator 3 in Italy (part of Hutchison Whampoa) launched their mobile TV service, but opposed to their counterpart in Germany this was based on DVB-H. Sprint started offering the service in February 2006 and was the first US carrier to offer the service. In the US Verizon Wireless and more recently AT&T are offering the service.

Overview

Mobile TV involves bringing TV services to the mobile phones. It combines the services of a mobile phone with television content and represents a logical step both for consumers and operators and content providers. Mobile TV over cellular networks allows viewers to enjoy personalized, interactive TV with content specifically adapted to the mobile medium. The services and viewing experience of mobile TV over cellular networks differs in a variety of ways from traditional TV viewing. In addition to mobility, mobile TV delivers a variety of services including video-on-demand, traditional/linear and live TV programs. Another exciting opportunity for users is Mobile TV pod casts, where content is delivered to a user's mobile on demand or by subscriptions. Stored locally on the handset, this content can then be viewed even when there's no network connection. And a service provider can schedule the delivery to “off-peak” hours, for example during the night.

Technically, there are currently two main ways of delivering mobile TV. The first is via a two-way cellular network and the second is through a one-way dedicated broadcast network. These include digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H), digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), TDtv (based on TD-CDMA technology from 1), 1seg (based on Japan's ISDB-T), DAB and MediaFLO. None is ideal as all have drawbacks of one kind or another: spectral frequencies used or needed, signal strength required, new antennas and towers, network capacity required, or business model.