Mobile television: technological and regulatory issues

The purpose of this paper is to analyse technological and regulatory issues arising from the introduction of TV services on mobile handsets.

The paper looks at the various technological solutions to the provision of mobile TV and records the progress to date of trials of these technologies. It also examines the regulatory framework in the EU and certain individual countries and analyses the effects of spectrum shortages.

The paper finds that the existence of competing, incompatible technologies, the constraints on the availability of suitable spectrum, the issue of what content to broadcast and the difficulties of persuading customers to pay for it are holding back the widespread dissemination of mobile TV, but only on a temporary basis.

This paper is the first detailed attempt to investigate this topic.