Saturday, August 25, 2012

Biggest Blunders in Mobile Broadcast TV

Fierce Wireless has an interesting series of posts on the worst wireless blunders.  I'll focus on one that's right on the money - the failure of U.S. mobile broadcast TV to find or develop a market.  The post focuses on is the various efforts to launch a nationwide network dedicated to mobile TV, as distinct from using existing mobile networks to stream TV, whether through dedicated channels (MobiTV) or streaming apps for smartphones or tablets.
  There's already been three major failures in mobile TV - the most widely known is probably Qualcomm's MediaFLO, which actually had some buzz at NAB conventions and had several test markets going for a while.
  In addition, Crown Castle (known for building and operating broadcast towers) tried to push its Modeo service beginning in 2004, using the international Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) technology.  It offered the network to operators on a wholesale basis, but never secured major carrier cooperation.  It even ran a beta test in New York, starting in January 2007.  By July Crown Castle had pulled the plug, and leased its nationwide wireless spectrum to other telecomm operators.
  A second company, Aloha Partners, also tried to develop a nationwide service using the DVB-H technology, beginning in 2006.  Aloha managed to at least interest a major wireless carrier (T-Mobile USA) in testing their system in 2007, which they claimed could offer up to 24 channels of programming.  The test evidently didn't go so well, as Aloha sold its wireless spectrum to AT&T in October 2007.
  Qualcomm's MediaFLO service was launched across the U.S. in mid-2009, with deals with both Verizon and AT&T to sell phones capable of receiving the approximately 12 channels of content that FLO offered.  Subscriptions to the FLO service through the carriers ran about $15 a month.  In October 2009, Qualcomm supplemented the carrier service by marketing a personal FLO device for $249 and offering subscriptions to channels starting at $8.99 a month.  Even after several price cuts, the number of subscribers never approached the number needed for long-term viability, and Qualcomm closed down the FLO service in the spring of 2011, selling the wireless bandwidth to AT&T.
  Many of the problems of these systems were that they only offered a fraction of the channels available, and often mixed content from multiple channels (often time-delayed and time-shifted) to the point where consumers couldn't rely on finding the programming they wanted.  But the biggest problem was the fact that these early systems relied heavily on cellphone technology - which at the time, meant very small screens, and severely shortened battery life (processing and displaying video uses much more power than voice calls.)  But the primary issue was that there wasn't much (if any) demand for mobile TV, and the various systems certainly didn't do much to try to build up demand.

  That's not to say that mobile TV will never succeed - handset and device improvements have kindled new interest in watching video content on phones and tablets; wireless broadband and "TV Everywhere" are helping consumers determine the value of mobile TV; and a new transmission technology using local TV broadcasters' excess bandwidth may provide more channels - and the potential for simulcasting the local station's programming gives consumers more insight into the possible value of mobile TV.  There's a new proposal for mobile TV (Dyle) being developed as a joint-venture of 12 major broadcast groups (including Fox, NBC, and Ion station groups) that seems promising. The first handsets are entering the market, so there should be some indications in the next year or so as to whether this iteration of mobile TV will have any better luck attracting consumers.

Source  -  The failure of mobile broadcast TV to capture consumer attention - worst wireless blunders,  Fierce Wireless

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