DVB-H: Mobile TV Standard in Europe
March 18th, 2008 | by Jose Miguel Cansado |
The European Union has selected DVB-H as the standard for Mobile TV in Europe. Although the decision is not binding for EU countries, it aims at stimulating the technology adoption, by avoiding a standards war where end-user pays the casualties - ask anyone that invested on a HD DVD player. GSM worldwide success came after being backed by European authorities. DVB-H, and its evolution DVB-SH, are likely to follow a similar route.
See comparison table between Mobile telephony and Mobile TV standards:
| Region | Mobile Telephony standard | Mobile TV standard | Comments |
| Europe, Middle-East, Africa | GSM / UMTS | DVB-H, DVB-SH | Standards driven by international bodies |
| Americas | CDMA, later GSM/UMTS growing | MediaFlo and DVB-SH deployments | Qualcom proprietary standards initially getting ground and later decreasing |
| Asia Pacific | PHS, CDMA and GSM/UMTS | DMB in Korea, ISDB in Japan, DVB-H in rest | Japan and Korea pioneer with local standards, later displaced by global standards as UMTS |
As can be predicted from the table and in line with GigaOm post, MediaFlo is likely to be relegated to US and DMB to Korea, both sharing market with DVB-SH/H.
