Entertainment
TV/Video
Music
Gaming
Mobile Internet access
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Mobile TV - Tuned in or turned off?
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For multiple reasons, TV has come to be regarded as the 'future' for cellular networks. Some operators see it as an obvious way to exploit their fledgling 3G networks...
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TV/Video
Mobile TV and video services are hotly tipped to gain serious market momentum in the next few years. Mobile TV services in theory offer the same 'live' broadcast images as those viewed over the traditional television medium. There are two ways to unite TV with mobile phone systems: real-time streaming over 3G networks and dedicated mobile broadcast networks.
Mobile TV services streamed over 3G networks make use of the increased capacity offered by 3GSM technology and can be viewed with a 3GSM handset. Operators including Hutchison/3 and Vodafone are pressing ahead with services that stream TV channels to 3G handsets.
An alternative way for operators to offer TV services is via dedicated, mobile TV broadcast networks using technologies such as DVB-H, DMB and MediaFLO.
The majority of broadcast mobile TV trials in Europe have been based on DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) technology and require users to have a DVB-H compatible handset. SFR, KPN Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, O2 and Telstra have all trialled DVB-H technology. More details can be found here: www.dvb-h-online.org.
Another mobile TV broadcast technology is South Korea's S-DMB (Satellite Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) service which as been put together by SK Telecom's TU Media subsidiary and Japan's Mobile Broadcasting Corporation, and is provided by a single satellite. In South Korea, the service has already reached 1 million users since its launch in December 2005.
In Europe, BT has joined together with Virgin Mobile customers to create BT Livetime which is based on DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), which in turn is based on the DAB technology used for digital radio.
Terrestrial-DMB (to distinguish it from the satellite version, S-DMB) has been trialled in Germany where trials have commenced with handsets supplied by LG and Samsung. Like DVB-H, T-DMB is also a standard endorsed in Europe by ETSI.
MediaFLO (Media Forward Link Only) is a technology developed by Qualcomm, and has seen interest from operators in the U.S and Japan.
MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services) is a technology designed to deliver multimedia content over 3G networks more efficiently. With MBMS, companies can expect to achieve the same level of coverage without the need for any additional spectrum, licensing or base-station construction.
Most industry observers expect mobile TV to be commercially available during 2006. Juniper Research predicts there will be 65 million users hooked up to mobile TV worldwide by 2010.
Mobile video services tend to involve the delivery of pre-recorded shorter clips such as news headlines, sports action and movie trailers. The majority of operators that have deployed 3GSM networks already offer mobile video services, utilising the extra capacity of 3GSM technology.
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Music
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Mobile Music: More ringtone than rock
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Have the prospects for mobile music been over-hyped? Certainly the enthusiasm generated by those in the value chain is being labelled by some...
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The GSM family of technologies enables the provision of a large number of music services. The demand for portable music is high and developments in the mobile industry mean that there is a growing list of mobile music products for the consumer. Traditionally the mobile music market has been limited to the provision of ringtones.
A ringtone is a brief audio file played to indicate an incoming call, and might consist of several bars of a familiar musical tune. Originally, a ringtone purchasing process typically involved a call over premium rate telephone lines to an Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) system. Today, the majority of ringtones are downloaded directly from WAP portals and sent to a user's phone via premium rate SMS.
Ringtones first became popular in 1998 with the introduction of the monophonic tone. The monophonic ringtone was born through the introduction of handsets that were capable of supporting the 20 to 30 notes that make up a ringtone. This capability was soon replaced as handset manufacturers developed devices that could replicate a number of sounds simultaneously, leading to the polyphonic ringtone, which has now predominantly taken the place of its monophonic predecessor.
"The mobile music market in China already generates more revenue than the region's traditional music format market"
Wang Jianzhou, President - China Mobile, 3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, February 2006
A new product called ringback tones - sounds that callers hear over the line when the phone is ringing to be answered at the other end - is also now available.
Meanwhile realtones (also known as truetones or mastertones) use actual sound recordings, and are growing in popularity. Realtones fall into two categories - those that use a recording which has been commercially released by a record label, and those which make their own 'soundalike' recordings.
Beyond ringtones, the ability to access complete music tracks and store them onto a mobile device is another contemporary development. Mobile phones are available on the market with built in synch-software and MP3 technology, as well as other digital music format playback capabilities. Realtones and full-track downloads are available from Internet and operator portals.
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Mobile games - a very serious business
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During 2005, mobile gaming will have generated close to US$2.4 billion in revenue for operators. An impressive number? Maybe not...
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Gaming
The mobile gaming market has evolved rapidly in recent years. Early examples included basic gaming services such as Snake that were built into handsets and displayed on a monochrome screen. Today, nearly all GSM handsets offer embedded games that make use of the device's colour screen and, in some instances, high quality speakers and memory cards. The range of inbuilt games available is dependent on the model and make of handset, but all are easily accessible via the device's main screen menu.
The launch of GPRS and 3GSM services has enabled the delivery of more advanced mobile games, downloadable for a fee from operator portals and the Internet.
Global Market Forecasts: Games Downloaded
2005: 75.9 million
2007: 162.5 million
2009: 262.7 million
2010: 299.4 million
There are two main download technologies for games handsets; Java and BREW. Java already has over 88% of the market and, although Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that its market share will fall in the coming years, on a global basis this decline is not expected to be significant. By 2010, Informa predicts there will be nearly 280 million users downloading Java games worldwide, representing 85% of the market. Meanwhile, it forecasts there will be over 34 million users downloading BREW games, forming 10.6% of the global market.
Multi-player gaming is also a growing market. Some content providers are offering games that enable up to eight people to compete in real-time over the network. With the launch of 3GSM services and 'all-you-can-eat' tariff packages, multi-player gaming is expected to grow much faster than single player gaming.
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Mobile Internet access
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Making the Internet Mobile
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Dotmobi is a new top-level domain, which will bring the wealth and variety of the Internet to mobile devices...
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Most Web pages are not well suited to viewing on the small screen of a mobile phone, so mobile operators typically offer access to Internet-style services and sites using a technology called WAP. There are hundreds of thousands of WAP sites containing much of the information and images found on the wider Internet. You need a phone with a WAP browser to access these sites.
An increasing number of handsets have relatively large colour screens and full Internet browsers that can call-up standard Web pages. The GSM Association has teamed up with Microsoft, Nokia, Vodafone and several other industry players to create a subsection of the main Internet designed for access by these mobile phones. The address of Web sites belonging to this subsection will end with the suffix .mobi, rather than .com or .org, signalling to the user that the site has been designed for viewing on a mobile phone (for more information see www.dotmobi.org/).
Many mobile operators also allow their customers to use a personal digital assistant or laptop computer to access the Internet via the mobile networks.
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