by Eunice Ratna Sari

Mobile TV is good news for those who want flexibility of time and place in watching television

Television is undoubtedly a basic need for some people. People can spend hours sitting and staring in front of the television, watching their favourite television programmes: news, football matches, soap operas, you name it. Loyal television audience, the euphemism of television junkies, may well spend more than 8 hours a day watching television. They will raise their eyebrows if you tell them that you do not watch television or do not own one.

For better or worse, there is good news for them: Mobile TV.

Mobile television or Mobile TV is a new way of watching television. You can watch broadcast programmes for information, entertainment and education on your mobile phones by simply subscribing to TV channel packages with your mobile phones.

Responding to the promising market of Mobile TV, several mobile device manufacturers have started to introduce their Mobile TV devices.

Nokia introduced N92 in November 2005 as the first integrated Digital Video Broadcasting for Handheld (DVB-H) mobile device in the Nokia Nseries. Using the mobile device, you can set reminders for your favourite TV programmes and create personal TV channel lists. In addition, the cellular connectivity can also enable you to interact with added-value services, such as voting, blogging, interactive feedback and web services.

Following N92, Nokia later launched N93 as the ultimate mobile device for spontaneous video recording. This device is designed to work with WLAN, 3G (WCDMA 2100 Mhz), EDGE and GSM (900/1800/1900 Mhz) networks to provide broadband Internet access for browsing, uploading content, sending and receiving emails in addition to the Mobile TV over 3G networks.

LG Electronics, one of the early leading global players in Mobile TV from South Korea, which previously worked with Digital Media Broadcasting (DMB) format for the Korean markets, has expanded their market by supporting the DVB-H format as well, through LG-V900 and LG-U900 since early 2006. LG-U900 has a long-life battery that enables people to watch television for more than three hours. In addition, the device also enables high-speed data transmission, various channel services, a high-resolution image and strong mobile broadcasting.

Another important global player from South Korea, Samsung, has shown its authority in Mobile TV by providing diverse handsets that can support any formats, such as Terrestrial DMB (T-DMB) and Satellite DMB (S-DMB) (Asia-Pacific), DVB-H (Europe), and MediaFLO (United States). P900 and P910, which particularly aims to target European market, have successfully been tested during the FIFA World Cup 2006. Only recently, Samsung launches SGH-P930 for the Italian market following the success of the SGH-P920 launch last May. The SGH-P930 combines not only the latest Mobile TV technology, but also HSDPA technology, which enables high-speed data transmission.