Germany: Struggle for supremacy in mobile TV
TV stations and cell phone carriers are competing for dominance in the market for mobile TV. Now it appears that a compromise has been reached in Hamburg that both sides can live with.
Television broadcasters and mobile operators are competing for the supremacy of television on cell phones. Now a compromise seems to have been reached in Hamburg that both sides can live with. This envisages sharing access to transmission capacities in the mobile DVB-H standard between TV broadcasters and mobile phone providers. However, it is still unclear which side will receive how many program slots. The approval of the Federal Cartel Office is also still pending. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports, the major mobile phone operators hope to be able to launch mobile TV using the DVB-H standard by Christmas 2007. The initial aim is to reach 20 percent of the total population - initially only in urban centers. Later, half of the German population should be able to receive TV on their cell phones via DVB-H.
