New Report Examines How 3G Mobile Networks Will Deliver Enhanced Video Quality

March 12, 2007

Research and Markets has announced the addition of "The Fragmented Landscape of Mobile Broadcast Solutions" to their offering.

This report analyses the various mobile TV solutions, including DVB-H, T-DMB, MediaFLO, DAB-IP, MBMS, TDtv and satellite DVB-H.

Cellular networks are not designed to deliver the same content simultaneously to a large number of mobile users. Basically, every cellular user trying to receive the content on their mobile phone occupies a channel, so the total network capacity that is used grows with the number of simultaneous users. In contrast, a broadcast solution is one of many (multicast), which is a more efficient mechanism for the delivery of mass-market popular content, especially live content. This translates into a better utilisation of network resources and a lower cost of delivery per user.

Mobile operators don't have to have a mobile broadcast to offer services like mobile TV or radio - they already provide these services over 3G. With enhanced 3G networks (for example, with HSDPA) they will be able to deliver similar video quality as will be obtained with mobile broadcast solutions. However, they have to consider mobile broadcasting for two reasons:

-- to decrease the cost of delivering these services, which in turn could provide them with the ability to offer more attractive pricing to end users

-- because delivering live multimedia services just through 3G is expected to result in network congestion. In the short term, this will produce point network issues during peak usage. Longer term it could provoke more serious degradation of the overall network performance. One mobile operator told us that it anticipates this type of issue around 2010.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c51926