Wireless Informatics Forum

In 2006, it was hoped that the FIFA World Cup would be the catalyst that ignited mobile TV. A combination of passionate  sports fans, the growth of 3G networks and mobile TV standards and an assumption that consumers would pay for the convenience of world cup football anytime, anywhere was enough to convince the industry that their investments in mobile TV and broadcasts rights were about to come good.

It didn’t turn out that way. In fact, analysis after the event by US-based telecom consultants Telephia suggested that even those who had already subscribed to mobile TV services  didn’t use them to watch the football. In Italy just 6% of subscribers accessed football content, followed by Germany (4%), France (3%), Sweden (3%), UK (3%) and Spain (2%).

With the Beijing Olympics now firmly underway, have things changed? Are we now at the tipping point for mobile TV? The short answer, it seems, is no. And what a missed opportunity.

Global events of this nature are a marketing goldmine and represent a rare opportunity to introduce a large demographic to mobile TV services. Certainly, there are a handful of (largely Asian) operators that have looked to leverage consumer interest in the games, offering discounted TV services to subscribers. However even these providers are far from forthcoming in their marketing of the service. AT&T, who signed an exclusive agreement with NBC to stream coverage via its Qualcomm MediaFlo platform, bury the promotion of the service four layers deep on their website. Of course, most have not forged agreements with broadcast partners and make no mention of the games outside of trying to drive subscribers to web portals to check latest results?

Interestingly, it may not solely be an issue of broadcast rights. BBC Sport recently announced a deal to deliver video highlights to T-Mobile subscribers (although a search T-Mobile website didn’t offer any further information). In an accompanying interview, the head of BBC Sport suggested that the service could have been offered to more carriers if they had been able to cope with demands of video delivery: “We’ve had discussions with all the mobile operators, it hasn’t been possible to work with all of them on it. In terms of challenges, that’s been an interesting one… We have an editorial vision for what we want to achieve, but it’s working in the realities of the UK mobile market; there are challenges.”

The issue runs deeper than simply the availability of Olympic coverage on the mobile. Global events such as the summer games are rare; outside of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup there are few multi-event ‘events’ that attract such a global audience across such a diverse demographic. These events have the ability to capture public conciousness over a period of weeks. As such they are great platform from which to introduce consumers to wider data services – not just video. However, they seem sorely under utilized.

Even the spectators (500,000 visitors, 10,708 athletes, 70,000 volunteers, 17,600 press and 4,000 staff) represent an opportunity. I’m willing to bet that the Beijing Olympics will be the most photographed sporting event in history thanks to the ubiquity of camera phones. Now have a guess at the percentage of those photos that will be MMSd back home. Fears over data pricing, roaming charges and poor configuration will inhibit all but the most ardent user.

The mobile community stills struggles to deliver pricing transparency and deliver confidence to the end-user. As a PAYG user on Vodafone UK, you are presented with the following MMS / roaming charges for China.

Picture messages: £0.36 + data (charged at £8.00 per MB and billed in increments of 10kb)

So what will a typical MMS cost because I’m still none the wiser?

Even if you could afford the £6-8 per MB that most UK operators are quoting for data when roaming in China, there’s the issue of 3G, or at least the lack of it. China Mobile has so far concentrated its 3G strategy through a local standard called Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDM). TD-SCDMA is recognised by the International Telecommunication Union, but the standard sits aside from CDMA and CDMA 2000. The upshot is that 3G subscribers will automatically be connected to 2.5G technology offering much slower connection speeds.

Ultimately, a combination of mis-matched standards, less than transparent pricing, roaming fees, broadcast rights, network limitations and poor marketing have hampered an otherwise golden opportunity for the mobile industry to deliver on its promise of a truly converged, multimedia experience. All things considered it may be the games of London 2012 that prove to be the real tipping point.