Interesting. The subject makes it seem like the story is about DVB-H or MediaFLO, right? Wrong. It's about a sort of hybrid scheme over 3G wireless, Multimedia Broadcast-Multicast Service (MBMS), where some of the system capacity is assigned to a "broadcast" channel. So some capacity is no longer available for subscriber calls, but the basic circuit-oriented cell system structure is retained, the same 3G frequencies are used, and the operator doesn't have to assign unique point to point circuits for the TV programs to individual subscribers. Over the broadcast channel, the media streams are transmitted via IP Multicast. So subscribers can join any of the multicast groups offered. Or the same programs can be broadcast to the broadcast channel in all cells. The advantage of this scheme is that the basic 3G system is all that's needed. The disadvantage is that you won't get as much total bandwidth available for these media streams as you can through a true broadcast network which uses a different right-of-way. Bert -------------------------------------- Live TV over cellphones launched in Hong Kong Mike Clendenin (05/16/2006 9:12 PM EDT) URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=3D187203794 HONG KONG - In an effort to find new and immediate sources to drive 3G demand, telecom provider PCCW is preempting the arrival of terrestrial-based broadcast services like DVB-H by deploying an early, simplified version of a specification designed to deliver live TV services over cellular networks. The operator is using Cell Multimedia Broadcast (CMB), a technology developed by China's Huawei Technologies, to offer a financial channel and a news channel to its 110,000 subscribers here. The service will be bundled with other service offerings from 3!, the telecom operator's third generation mobile service, and is enabled through a wireless software update to Huawei mobile phones. Other vendor phones will follow. Huawei's CMB is an early form of Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), which has been standardized in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project and is expected to hit the market by the end of 2007. MBMS is a broadcasting service that leverages the infrastructure of existing GSM and UMTS networks, and offers the advantage of an uplink channel for user interactivity-something that's not as easy to do in one-way broadcast networks. MBMS is also an improvement upon earlier point-to-point streaming systems, also known as unicast, which can seriously degrade network performance. PCCW's decision to move more aggressively into mobile TV is in part prompted by the lackluster demand for other core services enabled by 3G technology, such as high-speed data, video calls and mobile commerce. "Our experience in Hong Kong is that data is very poorly subscribed and people are not making money," said Liang Wu, executive vice president of emerging technology for PCCW. Wu said less than 10 percent of the operator's average revenue per user comes from data. He is also skeptical of mobile commerce, and believes that downloadable ring tones have actually been the most popular service. "But you don't need 3G for that. People talk about m-commerce, but it's a joke. Nobody makes it work," he said. According to Huawei, its pre-MBMS/CMB offering supports Revision 6 MBMS features, but leverages the existing R4/R99 network equipment to lower costs. Huawei is hoping this simplified version of MBMS can be rapidly deployed in order to "fill the technological vacuum" that exists prior to MBMS deployments. All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.