Single standard in EU for mobile TV mooted

Sabina Zawadzki

HANOVER, Germany: The European Union's telecoms chief threatened on Friday to mandate a single technology standard to enable mobile phones to show broadcast television if the industry does not choose one for itself.

EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding and the European Mobile Broadcast Council (EMBC) agree that using a single standard would help the fledgling but potentially lucrative industry to cut costs and justify investment.

But the EMBC, a body derived from the industry and set up to advise the Commission on the market, urged the EU executive not to single out one standard over another as countries experiment with the technologies available.

Reding backed the DVB-H standard, developed in the EU and partly funded by EU money, and urged the industry to agree to it, although she did not preclude that another standard could be chosen.

"I believe that with a lot of good will, the industry can go ahead with this and can agree on a standard," she told reporters at the world's largest technology fair, CeBIT.

"In the end I could mandate the standard. I don't want to do that because I think that would be only the last resort."

Most member states, 17 out of the 22 that have mobile TV, use DVB-H, the Commission said. Five, however, use DMB developed by Korea, while the situation gets more complex in Germany where federal states decide which to use, it said.

Reding referred to the success of the GSM standard in Europe for mobile phones, widely lauded for facilitating the development of the market and now used in many non-EU countries.

But the EMBC said the Commission has long held to the principle of "technology neutrality" where regulators' rules should not distinguish between technologies.

Qualcomm, which contributed technology to the MediaFLO standard that has been tested in Britain, said it would be surprised if the Commission dropped that principle.

"The industry is in the process of trying to decide what is the best business model," Qualcomm's Europe President Andrew Gilbert told Reuters. "To pull that rug from under the feet might be a little bit disruptive and may cause some concern.