KEY POINTS:
BARCELONA - Whether you're watching Shortland St or the America's Cup, the mobile phone industry wants you to do it on your cellphone and is spending millions to try to convert you.
Most of the buzz at the 3GSM World Congress this year was around mobile TV, with
all the major mobile handset makers introducing new phones with larger screens and built-in chips capable of receiving TV signals.
Mobile TV is already offered by 120 operators worldwide, including Vodafone and Telecom, but it is generally sent as a video stream - called unicasting - to handsets. Uptake of mobile TV services so far has been sluggish, with research singling out high pricing and unreliable service as the main reasons for people ditching their mobile TV subscriptions.
But the mobile industry is adamant there's a big market for it and has developed new devices and broadcast technologies to improve the viewing experience. Typically, industry players are taking different and incompatible paths to achieve the same thing.
Nokia's chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, predicts that up to 20 million handsets supporting the digital video broadcast for handheld (DVB-H) standard will have sold by the end of 2009. Nokia's new N77 phone supports mobile TV and will sell for about US$480 ($700).
US mobile chip maker Qualcomm is pushing MediaFlo, a different technology that relies on a dedicated TV broadcast network to deliver channels to specially equipped handsets.
It has sunk millions into building a sophisticated broadcast centre in San Diego and acquiring broadcast licences across the US.
The MediaFlo service is being used by Verizon and AT&T in the US and is being tested by Sky TV in Britain. It has won praise for the quality of the video and the lack of delay when changing channels on the mobile.
But some operators, including Verizon rival Sprint, have baulked at the technology outlay involved in running MediaFlo, preferring to use their own high-speed data network to deliver TV services.
Swedish equipment maker Ericsson beamed TV to prototype handsets at 3GSM using yet another standard called MBMS (multimedia broadcast multicast service) which effectively allows operators to "multicast" TV to large numbers of people using their existing mobile phone base stations.
The technology shares transmission capacity in the mobile phone network to broadcast digital video feeds to large numbers of users.
Ericsson spokesman Peter Hjort said the mobile TV technology would expand on existing services offered by GSM mobile operators to cater to subscribers tuning in on their mobiles for live events. "If you're at a cafe waiting for someone to turn up, you can watch the news or sports. It's also good for things like sporting events, where there are a lot of people using the cell [site] at the same time," he said.
In December, Vodafone started a mobile TV service, using its 3G mobile network to offer eight Sky TV channels including CNN, MTV and Sky Movies.
Subscribers with compatible handsets and in 3G coverage areas can receive video feeds of the channels for $2.50 a week.
Vodafone also plans to offer live broadcasts of rugby, cricket and European football on a pay-per-view basis.
3GSM congress
* The world's biggest mobile phone trade show.
* Attended by more than 60,000 company representatives.
* Features 1300 stands showing off the mobile industry's latest innovations.
* Peter Griffin attended the 3GSM World Congress as a guest of Ericsson.