In 2011, mobile TV services will have some 514 million subscribers worldwide, up from only 6.4 million at the end of 2005, according to ABI Research.
The fledgling market for mobile TV is beginning to build significant momentum, and advertising-supported broadcast services are expected to propel additional growth over the next few years, the research firm indicated.
"Broadcast will be the preferred method of access to mobile video for most people," said principal analyst Ken Hyers at ABI. "Unicast will remain part of the mix, for customers who want to access video-on-demand, but ABI Research believes that the majority of subscription services will be for broadcast content, and that unicast-only subscriptions will not be a significant part of the market."
South Korea and Japan are the early adopters, but European and North American markets are not far behind, with three contenders planning to introduce mobile video broadcast services in the United States over the next 12 to 18 months. MediaFLO (Qualcomm) plans to be first off the mark, having announced its intention to launch services in the fourth quarter of 2006; Hiwire (Aloha Partners) and Modeo (Crown Castle) will follow suit in 2007.
But Hyers cautioned, "Most markets will not be able to support more than two broadcast networks since the cost of building them is high, and most markets only have three or four major mobile operators selling wireless services to subscribers."
The most critical factor for a broadcaster's survival in the market will be commitment from mobile operators. "MediaFLO has been built for this purpose from the ground up, and will almost certainly be among the winners in the US," Hyers said. "Verizon Wireless has already committed to it. Modeo and Hiwire are competing for the business of just three major operators, and one of them will fail. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Modeo plans to be faster to market, and if it signs a major operator quickly, its battle is half won. On the other hand, in Hiwire's favor is its large (12MHz) and valuable swath of spectrum with more favorable characteristics than Modeo's."





