Samsung, MobiTV to launch new mobile TV standard

Digital broadcast service provider MobiTV, electronics firms Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz, communications solutions provider Nokia Siemens Networks and satellite communications company SES Americom jointly announced the launch of a new mobile television solution utilizing local broadcast TV spectrum. The platform, scheduled for live demonstration at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will deliver local and national programming as well as interactive applications to mobile devices "in-band"--i.e., on local stations' transmitters and spectrum--via Advanced Vestigial Sideband (A-VSB), a Samsung-developed, backward-compatible enhancement of the existing U.S. digital TV broadcasting system, and is based on open standard specifications defined by the Open Mobile Alliance BCAST 1.0, a globally interoperable mobile TV service layer specification suite.

The firms in question said they will announce A-VSB consumer trials later this year, with a commercial rollout planned for 2009. A-VSB is currently under consideration by the international broadcasting standards organization Advanced Television Systems Committee as an open standard for mobile broadcast TV. "We see A-VSB as complementary, not competitive, to wireless services," said MobiTV's director of strategic alliances Alan Moskowitz in a prepared statement. "By relying on existing TV spectrum to deliver bandwidth-intensive video to mobile devices, wireless service providers have a new option for providing TV to their subscribers. In addition, MobiTV's interactive application and VOD delivery platform will enable a new class of services combining broadcast TV and mobile data networks."

For more on the A-VSB alliance:
- read this release

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