Barcelona – Mobile TV proved an important theme at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) with key announcements showing good progress on various fronts for the mobile TV and video space. “As of early 2008 mobile TV is a reality, worldwide. According to Ericsson, there are more than 170 mobile TV offerings launched around the world, most of which are over cellular networks. Nokia Siemens Network said it provides its solutions to 30 unicast services and six DVB-H commercial launches,” says Vincent Poulbere, principal analyst at Ovum. “For many operators, early mobile TV services have not had much success so far and are still a small niche. But at the MWC, Telstra reported encouraging progress for mobile TV services delivered over its HSDPA ‘Next G’ network and Alcatel Lucent’s mobile TV platform. The Australian incumbent said 5% of its Next G customers subscribe to Foxtel Mobile services at AUD12 (US$11) per month.” Continues Poulbere, “The evolution of mobile TV will require a broadcast component. At the MWC, vendors provided some news regarding the progress of various mobile broadcast solutions: Alcatel Lucent’s DVB-SH, a hybrid solution combining satellite and terrestrial broadcasting, is progressing towards a commercial launch. “There are rollout opportunities for DVB-SH in Europe, following the allocation by the end of 2008 of an EU-wide 30MHz band reserved to hybrid systems, and also in Middle East with S2M’s mobile TV project in the region. On the device side, Alcatel Lucent is showing two DVB-SH devices from Samsung and Sagem. Nextwave’s TDtv is still a contender in the mobile broadcast space and Nokia’s N96 device will also be a strong addition to the line-up of DVB-H devices. “Another important theme is mobile TV and convergence. Several players announced solutions that blend together unicast and broadcast, for instance Nokia Siemens Network, Alcatel Lucent or Streamezzo. This combines in the same offering and EPG channels that are distributed via the cellular network and channels that are distributed via a broadcast network, and thus hide the delivery technology to the end-users. Also, these capabilities are required to provide interactive services onto broadcast channels,” concludes Poulbere.