T-Systems Media & Broadcast, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has been awarded a patchwork of spectrum which stretches over most of Germany to run a national DVB-H mobile TV network. We would expect it to offer it in much the same way it has been discussed throughout its trial in Berlin, started during 2005 and demonstrated during the Soccer World Cup held in Germany, as a service with multiple TV channels and multiple operators using it to provide mobile TV to their separate customers.
There has been a lot of talk in Germany about whether or not the big three operators, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and O2, should be allowed to form a consortium together, and it is likely that now this has been okayed, that it will provide the customer platform for the T-Systems service, and funding in the form of guaranteed customer numbers.
A year ago a senior Nokia official described at the World Cup what he called the 5:5:2 model for mobile TV. The reference was clearly analogous to the world cup soccer, where the popular 4:4:2 formation is most often used. He was implying that there were at least five operators adding E-Plus and KPN to the three mentioned earlier and a similar number of terminal suppliers, of which Nokia is one, and multiple system vendors.
Those ideas may not be entirely intact, but T-Systems is sure to offer an open system with many of the popular TV channels, combined with extra channels which differentiate each operator, running in different bouquets, and probably running separate DRM systems concurrently. This is similar to how Vodafone and Telecom Italia has shared a system with Mediaset in Italy. However the results there are exceptionally disappointing, because as yet they do not subsidize DVB-H handsets, and as such the rival network, run by 3 Italia, which does offer subsidized handsets, has over 700,000 DVB-H customers while the leading operators have just 10,000 each.
So far all of the efforts in Germany have been about ensuring that every handset can work with the trial multiplex in a completely interoperable way.
There also must be much celebration in and around Rohde & Schwarz, the transmitter company, which is sure to get the lion’s share of the transmitter supply contract, since it has partnered T-Systems exclusively in its trial and in recent wins that T-Systems has had around the world, building out DVB-H platforms in places like Dubai and Qatar.
Taking clues from the way the trial was run (it is still being run until December) the network operator will handle the broadcasting platform, mobile operators will handle billing, identification, and interactivity, broadcasters will provide content, and in equipment terms Nokia supplied most of the handsets although Philips was supposed to offer some, Rohde & Schwarz the transmitters, and we suspect that UDCast supplied the IP encapsulators which creates the time sliced multiplex (it did in an earlier Berlin trial and has for many other DVB-H implementations around Europe).
T-Systems created its own headend but since it doesn’t make encoders that will probably have involved equipment from Envivio and software from Nokia. Initially the system did not have a DRM, and it was due to be added later.
Germany has an area of about 350,000 square kilometers, and T’Systems says that it will eventually build out to reach 90% of the population. To do that it will probably have to cover no more than 30% to 40% of that land area, some 100,000 to 130,000 Square kilometers. Since transmitters can reach around 25 kilometers in each direction this will need around a hundred main 50 KW transmitters to power up each region or city and each of these will have to be supported by 30 or 40 gap fillers, which makes this one of the biggest DVB-H transmitter deals that are likely to be placed across Europe for mobile TV.
Of course existing TV transmitter sites may well be used, as they already have power and a tower, but new antennas are likely to be needed.
The network will start being built out in Hanover in Spring next year and the first live broadcasts should run in the middle of 2008. By the end of 2008 around 15 cities will have been covered and by the end of in 2009 all towns above 150,000 people will be completed. The magic 90% coverage figure is supposed to be reached by 2015, but this will depend, we are sure, entirely on the rate of take up. No good putting in more transmitters and more towers, if no-one is watching it, and on the other hand if the money is flowing in, the operators will be encouraging T-Systems to hurry up.
It is one of those unwritten rules that the last 20% of the people to be reached by a network makes up about 80% of all of the cost, and the system could grind to a halt if there are no takers in the early commercial centers.
Germany has already had one mobile TV flop, run by Debitel, which uses an existing digital radio multiplex, to send T-DMB TV channels. Just a few thousand handsets have been sold for this, but although T-DMB can be made to work with mobile TV, extra spectrum needs to be applied, as it was in Korea. Usually a DAB spectrum slice offers just 1.5MHz and can support 3 to 5 channels at a slightly lower resolution than DVB-H and visual quality has been found to be a key ingredient of mobile TV.