EU executive urges quick decision on mobile TV
Europe cannot wait until 2012, when sufficient radio spectrum will become available, commissioner says at CeBIT.
EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a speech at CeBIT, the world's biggest electronics trade fair, that decisions must be taken "in the coming 12 months."
"I am more and more convinced that we cannot wait until 2012 to deploy new services such as mobile TV on a large scale," she said. "We cannot afford to sleep on this. Actions are already well underway outside Europe. That is why we should act now to allocate at least some common European spectrum bandwidths for Mobile TV."
Mobile TV, which is digital television broadcast over airwaves and received on portable devices such as mobile phones and pocket computers, can be of economic importance as it will boost technological, industrial and consumer-services growth.
"We had better make sure that we create enough space for these services to take off," Reding said. "In particular, we have to make sure that harmonized spectrum is available across Europe, so that consumers can access services on their travels: This is the European freedom to move."
Bandwidth may need to be freed up earlier than planned to give these new mobile television services room to grow.
"In the medium term, as mobile TV takes off, we may need further bandwidth for the new mobile, audiovisual services that come on-stream," she said. "This means we should start serious discussions now about the use of the digital dividend for spectrum, including further harmonization at EU level of frequency bands for potential use by services such as mobile TV."
Without new rules it will be at least six years before sufficient radio spectrum will become available throughout the European Union following the phasing out of analog broadcasts.
Reding said the telecommunications, technology and media industries need to formulate how they want to kick-start a harmonized mobile television industry in the European Union.
"If the industry calls upon the commission to assist in achieving these goals we will do all that we can to assist."
At the moment, not all vendors and telecoms firms agree which of the six available technologies for mobile TV should be used, although most agree that scarcity of radio spectrum is holding back development of the service. In trials, consumers have said they want at least 16 channels to choose from.
Reding said that by early next year she will propose specific further steps to "unlock the potential of mobile TV."