Nokia to Launch DVB-H Mobile TV Phone Next Year

7th November 2005

Nokia are to launch their first mobile phone which includes a DVB-H receiver to allow users to view mobile TV in countries where it's available. The N92 will offer have the following features:

2.8" anti-glare QVGA screen, 4:3 aspect ratio
15 frames/second video at QVGA resolution or 30 frames/second at QCIF resolution
Electronic Programme Guide (EPG)
viewing time of 4 hours, recording and 30 seconds replay
MP3 player
support for 2 GB memory cards
90 MB on-board flash memory
W-CDMA (3G) and EDGE (2.5G)
FM radio with Visual Radio support
2 megapixel camera
Wi-Fi
infrared
Bluetooth
USB 2.0

It is expected to be available by mid 2006.

Switzerland and Italy are the first countries that have announced that they plan to launch commercial DVB-H services next year, but the first DVB-H commercial launch should be in America early next year.

In the UK, O₂ has been trialling DVB-H in Oxford and would like to launch a service as soon as possible, but Ofcom have indicated that they may have to wait until 2008 before Band IV/V spectrum -- the spectrum that terrestrial TV uses -- becomes available. However, analogue TV is going to be switched off on a region-by-region basis starting in the Border TV region in 2008, and with the south-east of England not switching over until 2012. So, if O₂ has to wait until 2012 before it can launch mobile TV nationally, I'd imagine it will opt to use MMBS (mobile multimedia broadcast services) instead. MMBS is a revision of the 3G standards which will allow multimedia streams to be broadcast using the 3G system as opposed to the current method of distributing mobile TV streams on 3G which is similar to unicasting on the Internet, i.e. each user receives its own stream. This method consumes large amounts of the limited capacity available in a mobile phone cell and could cause capacity problems for voice/data traffic once take-up of 3G has increased. Orange an Vodafone are both using this latter method of distributing their low picture quality mobile TV channels to users. In comparison, DVB-H will broadcast far higher picture quality streams, albeit that they'll only be viewed on a very small screen.