Even though Europe has a mobile DTV standard, providers aren“t necessarily using it, according to an article in Beta News. The European Union deemed DVB-H the standard five months ago, but the businesses developing mobile DTV don't appear enthused about adopting it. One German consortium was said to have discontinued tests on the standard. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom was providing the network infrastructure for the system, two other companies provided devices and companion technology, and several German broadcasters provided content.
The service was supposed to cost around 10 euros per month for the premium tier, but a regional cell phone service provider rolled out a similar service for free to its own customers. The free service uses DVB-T, the terrestrial broadcast transmission format. DVB-T is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, which is said to have better mobile receptivity than 8-VSB, the DTV broadcast standard in the United States.
A mobile companion format to 8-VSB is being developed by U.S. broadcasters hot to compete in the mobile TV arena, but they are also up against some established players, including Verizon, MobiTV, SprintTV, SlingPlayer Mobile and AT&T Mobile TV. Television Broadcast contributor Paige Albiniak provides an overview of the U.S. mobile DTV market in the July issue of the magazine.
