The Coming Mobile-Video Deluge

BusinessWeek looks at the growing market for mobile TV and the various competing technologies competing to deliver video to handsets.

According to Albert Lin at American Technology Research, "The U.S. mobile video user base may balloon to more than 20 million by the end of 2007, up from less than 1 million today. In addition, ABI Research predicted more than 250 million people worldwide to be watching mobile video by 2010, generating some $27 billion in sales, vs. $200 million today."

Comparing the various technologies, Lin commented that "with DVB-H, changing a channel might take up to 10 seconds> He said, "That's almost by itself a show-stopper. People are going to shun the services."

On the otherhand MediaFLO will offer almost instantaneous channel-surfing, more channels, and less infrastructure costs. Lin added that DVB-H "will cost twice as much in operating and capital costs" as MediaFLO."