Ireland Axes Mobile TV Plans

An article by the GSM Association published January 10, 2011 indicates the Irish regulator is withdrawing its plans to offer mobile broadcast. The article, quoted in its entirety below, says:

ComReg, the Irish telecoms watchdog, said it 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 authorisation diminished.” 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 says 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 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 pilot 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 a Juniper Research study, 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.

DVB-H cellphone

It's certainly not the only place that this business model has struggled.  Operators have shut down operations in Switzerland and returned spectrum in France while mobile TV operations in Hungary and Germany are at a standstill

What's significant about this? The "operator" mentioned in the GSMA article is not a broadcaster but cellphone company Vodafone Ireland, which responded with a bored, "whatever" when told they might not be able to provide mobile television service.  This spectrum was intended to be broadcast to cellphones using the same business model attempted by MediaFLO in the US.

Are they ever going to get it right? Maybe. It's worth noting that ComReg is considering "technology neutral awards of UHF spectrum." In other words, perhaps it's not going to be dedicated to the cellphone-centric DVB-H service. DVB-H is intended to be offered on a subscription basis by cellphone operators, a business model which, the article points out correctly, has "... struggled to monetise services."

It points up what I've been saying all along... the local broadcasters are in the best position to offer TV, mobile or fixed and the cellphone-based subscription model will continue to struggle if not die off altogether.

RIP MediaFLO? One Man's Experience

Having been a part of the mobile research and advisory industry for more than 10 years, I was lucky enough to get some cellphones to test when they were announced by the mobile operators.  AT&T was the most generous and I had the chance to use both a LG VU and a Samsung Eternity, both of which were equipped with MediaFLO receivers. These were both great phones (the Eternity is still in loving use) and the mobile TV function was something I needed to try out so I could have a clear understanding of how it worked from the consumer's perspective.

The relatively low frequencies used by the MediaFLO TV signal (UHF 52-54) gave it pretty good range and building penetration, so I could watch good TV even inside the house.

But the real test came when I was taking a train to my old family home in Michigan. Snow on the tracks had delayed the Amtrak Wolverine Express for several hours (Snow? In Michigan? In December? How could Amtrak have anticipated that?!) So I whipped out my LG VU to start watching TV programming.

And I watched.... er... well. Nothing that I really wanted to. I'm bored out of my mind, I have THE best technology to chase my boredom away and there's nothing. Deep inside Chicago's Union Station, the signal was weak. Once we started clickety-clacking through the Chicago suburbs, though, the signal was strong.

The programming, however, was weak. A movie that was halfway over. Spongebob Squarepants. Something about football. I kept flipping the channels, thinking "15 channels and nothing to watch." I finally settled on a news documentary about some woman who had killed her child (not my customary viewing).

Luckily, or not, once we got outside Chicago and neared Gary, Indiana, the signal sputtered and vanished. No more FLOTV for me for the rest of the trip.

I was deeply unsatisfied and, not only that, I was getting the signals for free! Because I was an industry analyst with a test unit, I wasn't even paying the $15/month charge.

I felt let down. And I remembered my visit to the huge, elaborate network operations center QUALCOMM had built in San Diego. They said proudly that they had the most advanced NOC anywhere... even the major networks didn't have operations like this.

15 channels and nothing to watch.

It was pretty clear MediaFLO was about to die a slow death.  There's no doubt that the technology worked, and worked really well. But the programming and the cost doomed US operations of MediaFLO from the start. Good try, great proof-of-technology. Business case? Not so much...

The failure of one business plan does not represent the failure of the industry

The website Paid Content and others are shoveling dirt onto Qualcomm's MediaFLO grave after employees were apparently told the operation would be shutting down by the end of the year.

What's important to understand is that the failure of MediaFLO's business plan in the US does NOT represent a failure of mobile video, particularly Mobile DTV.  I count myself among those who foresaw the demise of MediaFLO years ago because of its awkward business model:

• It had  to be on a cellphone
• It had to cost $15 per month so MediaFLO USA, the mobile operator and content owner could make enough money on it
• Consumers had to be  satisfied with 12 channels or so of content you could find anywhere
• Spotty coverage limited the places you could  view MediaFLO. Downtown was fine, but in the suburbs? Not so much.

MediaFLO's ambitious business plan had so many elements that were working at cross purposes that it's sometime amazing that it worked at all.  Handset vendors, MediaFLO, mobile operators, content owners and, of course, consumers, were expected to do their parts. Some did, most didn't. There weren't many compatible handsets, there was very little marketing support from the operators and as far as content goes.... 14 hours a day of Spongebob Squarepants just didn't do it for me. And apparently, consumers didn't do their part, which was to have been rushing out and snapping up handsets and signing up for a service that would increase their monthly cellular bill  by about 25%. 

However, don't use this setback to paint a dismal picture for the entire industry.  In particular, Mobile DTV seems to be ready to fill the place of MediaFLO, without the complex value chain and, more important without the monthly charge.  If consumers can get mobile television in the way they've been receiving commercial broadcasting for the past 80+ years, it's possible there will be some success in the future.

What we're doing here

I've been covering mobile applications, devices and networks for over 15 years and have gotten a pretty good idea about what will work and what won't, particularly in the US.  We've seen plenty of fads, fantastic ideas, and just poor thinking in the name of chasing down the dollars from the pockets of mobile consumers.

One of my favorite topics, though, is mobile video.  At this point, I think it is one of the most misunderstood topics, in part because it's so difficult to define.  All of these things are fit the definition of mobile video and TV.

• MobiTV and GoTV, which stream video content to mobile phones
• MediaFLO and DVB-H, which use a separate broadcast network to send TV shows to mobile phones
• 1-Seg, the extremely popular mobile TV station that works a lot like MediaFLO but it's free. Comes from Japan but gaining a foothold in South America as well.
• Mobile Digital TV which in the US, will soon be available using the ATSC Mobile/Handheld specification

The one I think has the greatest chance in the US right now is Mobile DTV for one primary reason: It uses exactly the same business model that has been since commercial broadcasting started in the 1920s. An advertiser supports the production of original content by paying the broadcaster. The signal is received at no additional charge via a receiver purchased from a consumer electronics store. It will work because it has worked for over 80 years.

The other alternatives rely on so many new connections, new business models, new relationships among the players (and new players) and make the one huge jump that consumers are resisting: paying for something that has been otherwise free.

I'll have a lot more on this, but this is my mobile video manifesto... a lot of things will start from these assumptions.