It is noteworthy that the spectrum for 3G services in India has not yet been alloted so far and is also likely to follow the auction route. What is surprising however that the Terrestrial broadcasting recommendations of the TRAI which have been with the Government since 2005 have yet to be announced as a licensing policy for terrestrial broadcast services.As mobile TV services and terrestrial broadcast services ( i.e DVB-T or ISDB-T) can be provided by using the same carrier, it is not clear how these are proposed to be treated seperately in the policy. Auction of UHF spectrum, the first of its kind in India is expected to fetch very high prices. This could be an impediment to growth of mobile TV as an independent service, given the low handset base and revenue models in the short term. For existing cellular operators also it is a dilema as to whether they should stick to the 3G spectrum which can well serve low user densities or also go in for terrestrial spectrum.

Indian regulator TRAI issues Draft Recommendations for Mobile TV Licensing in India

The regulator has now announced the draft Policy for mobile TV, which is based squarely on the treatment of mobile TV as a different service, a different spectrum band and a different transmission from any terrestrial transmissions.
How out of place it is, can be seen from the recent development of mobile pedestrian handheld (MPH) and its demonstration at CES 2008.
LG Unveils Mobile Pedestrian Handheld (MPH™) technology at CES 2008, Las Vegas
LG has unveiled the MPH technology for delivery of TV for handhelds in the United States and other countries using the ATSC standard. This could be one of the most important developments in the field of Mobile TV for North America, which does not have the advantage of DVB-H technology being able to ride on the DVB-T networks being installed currently in many regions of the world including Europe and Asia.
This time, the advantage, however appears to be with the MPH technology as it does not need any additional spectrum. The MPH can enable any device for mobile TV by the use of miniature cards or USB attachments.
This implies that within a year, all mobile devices, such as personal media players, gaming devices or cell phones could be enabled for mobile television programming reception. The reception is possible upto 90 Kilometers per hour, which is a reasonable speed in city conditions.
MPH is based on highly efficient MPEG4 encoding coupled with VSB transmission of mobile TV content. The key advantage of the technology appears to be the use of the existing frequency spectrum used for standard definition or high definition digital television transmissions as well as the existing transmitter infrastructure, with only an additional exciter.
This can turn out to be a major differentiator, as spectrum costs can be very high. Many countries ( such as India, for example) are set upon auctioning the mobile TV licenses based on the fact that it needs to use additional spectrum. The license pricing is essentially the price of the additional 8 MHz spectrum.
The new technology, once in place will create a totally new universe of receiving devices with personal media players(PMPs), gaming devices, Standalone TV mobile receivers coming into vogue.

In a region characterized as the largest mobile TV market in the world, with Korea, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and others having launched mobile TV services, the Indian regulator TRAI has now issued draft recommendations for licensing of mobile TV services. The draft recommendations come after a brief consultation process. India is the fastest growing cellular mobile market in the world with over 8 million users being added every month( nearly a 100 million a year at current pace) but is beset with serious policy issues of licensing, spectrum allocation and regulation. 3G spectrum is not yet allocated in the country and time is running out for many companies which target mobile multimedia services.

The TRAI has recommended a bidding process for licensing of mobile TV services, with a one time entry fee as being the sole criteria for the selection of bidders. Upto 74% foreign direct investment will be permitted in mobile TV companies. Technology neutrality has been permitted in the licenses; i.e. the licensees can roll out networks based on any of the commonly used technologies for mobile TV. Each successful bidder is to be allocated one spectrum slot of 8 MHz irrespective of technology.

The regulator has proposed to allow all mobile companies to start providing mobile TV services without any entry fee or any additional license fees. It has however not elaborated how these will be provided in the absence of allocation of 3G spectrum.

For the terrestrial transmission based mobile TV services, however a very severe regime has been proposed. Only those technologies are to be allowed which have a base of at least 100,000 users. This may be difficult to meet for many technologies, which have undergone trials but the networks are under launch.

The yearly license fees for such companies is to be 6% of gross revenues plus 5% of the highest bid for one time entry fee. As the license fees for entry can be very high, the yearly license fees is set at an unprecedented high scale. However mobile companies providing identical services need to pay no such license fees.

Mobile TV licenses have been offered separately for Terrestrial broadcast and Satellite based services. The roll out times provided are 1 year, otherwise the bidders need to agree to forego a performance guarantee of $5 million. ( For whole of India).

The regulator has chosen to be silent on how a satellite system can be coordinated and made operational within one year.
The present recommendations are in a draft form and the regulator will issue final recommendations after 10th Jan 2008. The government is then expected to come out with policy to regulate and issue licenses in the sector based on these policies.

Previous recommendations of the TRAI on digital terrestrial broadcasting issued in 2005 are yet to see the light of the day in the form of policy announcements for licensing.

Indian regulator TRAI Announces Mobile TV Licensing Recommendations for India

The Indian regulator for the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors has issued recommendations for licensing of Mobile TV services in India. This completes the process of consultation on the Mobile TV and places the onus of announcing the License Policy on the ministry of information and broadcasting ( MIB).

The licensing regulations primarily address the terrestrial broadcast mode for mobile TV. No recommendations have been made for the satellite mode of mobile TV services delivery, which incidentally had found a prominent place in its draft recommendations issued on 3rd Jan 2008. It has also left the mobile TV on cellular networks ( GSM, CDMA or 3G networks) to be governed by the operators mobile telephony( CMTS) or universal services licenses( UASL).

The salient features of the Mobile TV policy recommendations are as follows:
- Technology Neutrality (i.e. DVB-H, DMB or FLO technologies have been permitted along with others).
- 74% FDI permitted, but no broadcasting or Cable TV company can hold more than 20% in a mobile TV company. Likewise a mobile TV company can not hold more than 20% in a broadcasting or Cable TV company
- Licenses to be issued for each “Circle” or for the entire country based on a bidding process for licenses.
- Each licensee to be issued Spectrum of 8 MHz in UHF band V(585-806 MHz), only one license( or one spectrum slot) to be permitted to any one company
- 4% of gross revenues or 5% of the highest license bid; whichever is higher; to be paid as revenue share every year
-Net Worth requirements of $0.75 Million ( Appox.) per service area. This translates to about $15 million for the country.
-Services to commence within 18 months; enforced by a performance bank guarantee of $0.5 million for each service area ( $11 million for the country).
- Content to be regulated by the content code of the MIB

Comments on the recommendations
-The mobile TV licensing recommendations as issued are quite onerous in terms of the license fees and ongoing revenue shares. The performance bank guarantees are also very high.
-Linking of annual revenue share to 5% of the highest bid for an area seems to lack any logic as a rouge bid would imply all operators needing to pay a very high license fees.
- By placing equity cross holding restrictions on broadcasting companies, it virtually prohibits such operators to extend their services to the mobile screen- a natural extension.
This means that different companies need to be formed for each screen size or mode of delivery.
- The mobile TV services, per se, have not been defined. Does mobile TV mean delivery to mobile devices or does it mean to those with a specific screen size such as QCIF or QVGA or is it by basing it on terrestrial broadcast.

- The recommendations are silent on the relationship pf mobile TV with standard definition terrestrial TV (such as DVB-T). In most implementations DVB-H services can be delivered on the same carrier as that used for DVB-T. The same is the case in ISDB-T technology used in Japan. In the recommendations now issued, such operation has been ruled out.
- The recommendations make no reference to other delivery extensions such as WiMAX, another mode of delivery of mobile TV Technologies.
- Interchangeability of handsets has been prescribed between different service provides ( if the handsets are provided by them). This is tricky with various versions of the same technology much less between different technologies. An example is the DVB-H technologies based on OMA-BCAST or DVB-CMBS implementations.
- The recommendations are silent on audio services to be provided on the same media. At present the FM, to which parallels have been drawn throughout, does not permit news and current affairs.
- No requirements are placed on mobile operators to give a reference interconnect offer for the return path, which may be critical in many implementations. The mobile operators providing services on their own networks have a conflict of interest with the broadcasters providing services via a terrestrial medium- the subject of current licensing policy.
- All mobile TV licensees are required to share their infrastructure with other mobile TV licensees. This can lead to a wait and watch game in the 18 months leading to the launch of services to piggyback on the operator which launches services first, though it is expected that Doordarshan infrastructure may initially be used by all licensees. This can have serious implications if a company setting up infrastructure can not derive a competitive advantage from the same. The cellular operators however have been kept beyond the purview of such compulsory sharing.
- The FDI of 74% is inconsistent with the current licensing policy in the media sector where 49% is the norm.

On the whole it appears that the ministry of information and broadcasting which sought the recommendations in the first place may have a hard task to maintain a semblance of uniformity of treatment to broadcasters as against cellular operators for providing the same service.

i purchased N77 from singapore. But couldnt use the Mobile TV. Please recommend.
thanks