Mobile TV viewers may get another channel: Harris, LG technology allows broadcasters to target portable devices

Another technology designed to get people to watch TV beyond the living room is getting ready for its close-up. Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld technology, or MPH, is an in-band mobile digital television system set to debut later this month at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.
Whether the technology will compete with the likes of MediaFLO and DVB-H remains to be seen.
MPH enables local broadcasters to expand on the capability of their existing facilities for broadcasting TV signals by delivering that same signal to handheld devices. Harris Corp., which developed the transmission standard for digital television, joined forces with LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and its U.S. research subsidiary, Zenith Electronics Corp., to develop MPH. Early this year, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced A-VSB, a similar technology.
Both allow digital TV stations to complement their high-definition and standard-definition programming with offerings in mobile. These new alternatives can be spearheaded directly by local broadcasters, and give broadcast stations an opportunity to reclaim some control in the mobile environment.
That said, few traditional wireless carriers would allow a chipset to be included in their cellphones that might circumvent their network and provide little to no revenue.
MediaFLO USA Inc. and DVB-H providers HiWire and Modeo L.L.C. use technology that broadcasts mobile TV on separate, dedicated networks, while GoTV Networks Inc. and MobiTV Inc. transmit their programming over carriers’ networks.
“The difference between what we’re proposing and showing vs. let’s say MediaFLO or Modeo, is the ability to provide a service from the broadcaster, not a separate transmission network. So it comes from the broadcaster, it allows them to re-use their content and to provide localized service,” said Jay Adrick, vice president of broadcast technology at Harris. “This plays on the strength of the broadcaster, which is localism. It would also allow them to duplicate their over-the-air television broadcast signal in the mobile service.”
ABI Research analyst Judy Rosall said she doesn’t think MPH will be a direct competitor to other mobile TV providers. “I definitely think it’s an adjunct to the premium mobile TV services that are going to be offered,” she said. “This may be lower quality and cheaper subscriptions.”
Rosall added, “I think it can confuse the market as far as the choices that will have to be made. It could muddy the waters more.”
Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media at Telephia, disagrees. “I think choice is great,” he said. “To the consumer, which acronym describes the service I’m getting is almost irrelevant.” Consumers are most interested in price, video and audio quality and programming, he said.
“If the MPH world really wants to move from the portable arena into the mobile arena, they will have to find a way to make this attractive to the carriers,” he said.
Part of the uncertainty among those in the wireless industry is due to the mixed signals from MPH backers. Perhaps LG was trying to spread the field when the company’s vice president of public affairs, John Taylor, told RCR Wireless News that the new technology is “totally unrelated to anything cellphone” and is “not a mobile phone cellular solution.” LG, after all, is a major partner with MediaFLO, having launched one of the first handsets for the service, and could very well be developing handsets for other broadcast mobile TV alternatives.
“This is not a pure cellular-type system and the target devices, while they include cellphones, there are many other receiving-type devices besides cellphones,” Harris’ Adrick clarified. In the end, the products on which MPH is delivered will be driven by the needs and wants of the broadcasters.
Taylor said “this is a new area for broadcasters” who are “looking for ways to reach more eyeballs with their signals.” He said the mobile solution for broadcasters has been a missing piece of the puzzle.
“They all have digital transmission systems up and running . so this would be an enhancement to their buildout of their digital plans,” Adrick said. The upgrades would cost each of the 1,780 digital TV stations in the United States anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000, depending on the number of channels they want to implement and the amount of redundancy they require; a likely range would spread from one channel with no redundancy to three channels with full redundancy, he said. “The number of (channels) is dependant upon the amount of bandwidth you take away from the main broadcast signal,” Adrick added. “The greater the coverage of the broadcast station, the more mobile coverage you will get.”
The technology is unique to other mobile TV services in that its backbone is based on a single transmitter delivered to a single receiving antenna; hence, there is little need for handing off a signal from one tower to another because of the 45-mile coverage range of most broadcast stations. Harris, however, might develop technology to enable a handoff between overlapping markets, and is already looking at options for on-demand services.
The system comprises multiple streams: a main service stream for existing digital television and high-definition television service, and a second MPH stream for one or more mobile services.
The broadcast industry is expected to choose an industry standard for mobile TV, whether it be MPH, A-VSB or something else.
As Harris tries to get customers for its technology, it is finding many stations are grouping together to deploy services.
“This certainly is a different approach for broadcasters than they have had in the past, but it’s one we feel broadcasters will be headed toward in this new world of digital,” Adrick said.
Chipsets are being developed to meet the MPH standard and the technology is expected to start rolling out to market later this year and through 2008.