Channel premiere European Open Mobile TV Era

Yesterday, Europe's first television signal sent directly to the mobile phone business channel launched in France, the service charge of 12 euros per month

Europe's first television signal sent directly to the mobile phone business channel was officially launched yesterday, the launch of this business is the French satellite Corporation for Television Broadcasts Canalsat and the French mobile phone operator SFR. Mobile phone TV broadcast in Europe also indicates that this revolutionary means of communication has been in the world begin to display talents after the United States has opened, mobile phone TV service.

SFR users will be fortunate enough to enjoy the first batch of the service, they can receive the television signal provided by Canalsat by the current hot 3G technology.

According to the introduction of the two companies, the initial launch of 17 channel programs, including the French pay TV channel CanalPlus, a monthly fee of 12 euros (about $14.6), but does not include the cost of connection. In addition, after the end of the summer, that is, from September onwards, there will be more channels open.

The concern is that the real initiator of this mobile phone TV campaign is Europe's most powerful media and telecom giant - France and Britain's Vodafone group Vivendi universal. SFR as a co investor, Vivendi universal and Vodafone respectively took control of the company in 56% and 44% of the shares, while the CanalPlus channel is Vivendi Universal's assets.

2001, SFR from the French government to buy 3G technology on behalf of the UMTS license, and invested 250 million euros in network development costs. In February last year, UMTS system trial run in France, after the success of the company's customers, SFR has been fully open to the individual users of the service. The launch of the mobile phone TV, but also to prove that the UMTS system gradually matured in France, and its huge commercial value has begun to show.

However, in the application development of wireless high speed network and data communication, Europe has fallen behind the United states. Previously, only NOKIA in Europe with Finnish Broadcasting Company and other mobile service providers to do a small test of mobile tv.

In the United States, Verizon in January this year launched a pay phone TV program, the fee is $15 per month. Sprint has become the first person to eat crab a year ago, and hundreds of thousands of people have been watching live news, sports and other videos on their mobile phones. Cingular, the nation's largest wireless operator, has launched a mobile service package, which costs $9.99 a month, and subscribers can enjoy a TV program on the 22 channel.

According to market research firm Yankee group estimates that by the end of this year, the U.S. mobile TV users is expected to reach 1 million 300 thousand, in 2008 this figure is expected to exceed 10 million. But Yankee also believes that the market is still in a very early stage, and technology is the core issue.

Because of the limited bandwidth of high-speed networks, if the number of users using mobile TV services increased, the network will certainly be blocked. In addition, mobile TV on the battery consumption is very large, the existing mobile phone battery technology can only support an hour or so.

Although the development of mobile phone TV service is also facing many difficulties, but in the long term, with the increase of the mobile communication network bandwidth, decrease the tariff level, with the increasing popularity of video feature phone, mobile phone TV business will get rapid development, and formed a large market size.

A report from IMS Research shows that by 2010, the world will have 120 million mobile phone users to watch live TV programs, while Asia will become the most popular area for mobile phone TV service, followed by the United States, Europe and the Middle East and africa.