Wednesday, May 14, 2008

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Samsung, LG Propose U.S. Mobile-TV Standard

South Korea's Samsung and LG Electronics this morning agreed to drop their own competing proprietary handheld-TV technologies, instead coming up with a unified offering they're going to promote as ideal for the United States.

Of course, the new standard is in direct competition with Qualcomm and its MediaFlo, which both AT&T and Verizon are using.

Samsung and LG are making a play for backing from the TV industry, which would dearly like its local shows and advertising to be available on the tiny screens of cellular handsets. That's happened in several countries, but not in the United States.

At a formal signing ceremony in Seoul this morning, top executives from the two companies put aside their differences to forge a single system to propose to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) as a U.S. standard. The ATSC is expected to adopt a mobile/handheld DTV standard for the North American market next year, following trials of the technology by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), a trade group that now counts 420 commercial TV stations in its membership.

The proposed technology, the two say, will use existing terrestrial digital-TV broadcast bandwidth. They're promising "no impact on existing digital TV and with minimum broadcasting equipment investment." The proposal apparently will use elements from Samsung's AVSB mobile-TV offering and LG's rival MPH system. And in addition to Qualcomm's MediaFlo, there's also Europe's DVB-H, the South Korean T-DMB format, and Japan's OneSeg, creating a world-wide melange of competing mobile-TV proposals.

The big issue is whether subscribers will pay for the privilege of watching TV on their wireless devices. In the United States, AT&T just two weeks ago launched its mobile- TV offering, demanding $15 a month for a basic 10-channel package. The Samsung/LG proposal reportedly would let local broadcasters, with no need for any additional bandwidth, transmit directly to subscribers, who wouldn't have to pay for the privilege of watching the programs (sort of like the difference between rabbit ears and cable TV.) In both Japan, where there are an estimated 25 million mobile-TV-enabled handsets in use, and South Korea, with 11 million, pay-video services have been running in the red as consumers demand free local stations instead.

"LG and Samsung are already world-class in digital TV and mobile communications," said LG President and CTO Woo Paik at the signing ceremony this morning. "Through this collaboration, we also have an opportunity to lead the North American mobile-DTV market."

"Our collaboration on North American mobile DTV standardization will help accelerate the ATSC standardization of mobile-TV technology, which will benefit both consumers and broadcasters," added Samsung Digital Media Business President JongWoo Park.