Cellcos turn to mobile TV

Cellcos turn to mobile TV
Cellcos (all over the world) are trying to shift current mobile video applications from gadgets for the tech-savvy to mass market applications, i.e. affordable, easy to use and widely distributed. The road should be quite long,but 2006 should be the coming of age for mobile TV. Current programs include a mix of on-demand clips and live streaming mostly news, sports, music videos: the content use breaks into 41% for news, 27% for sports, 19% for entertainment and 13% for music videos. Knowing that an average video viewing session is about 10 minutes, multiplied by the number of potential users (in a mass market perspective), that makes a lot of traffic and data volume, transformed in potential additional revenues. With voice revenues facing threat from VOIP and slowing down, no mobile operator can ignore alternative new revenues. They just ask for some additional improvements in picture quality and ease-of-use. Some would enter the content production market (acquisition or tight links with content providers), but they could likely be a small number (it is not their business and it is risky), some don't and would prefer to diversify sources and just make trade deals. Like for SMS or MMS, interoperability is the key factor for the market taking off rapidly. And it is not yet the case.