There will be a Hungarian DVB-H mobile TV trial sooner rather than later, potentially leading to a service there, with Hungarian broadcaster Antenna Hung’ria and the mobile arm of Magyar Telekom, which is majority owned by Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, announcing that a technical trial will start this month.
Antenna Hung’ria is already broadcasting DVB-T digital terrestrial TV in Hungary and this will dramatically mitigate the costs of deploying DVB-H, especially if it is offered in the major cities of Hungary at first.
The system will be tested for six months using content from four existing TV channels, M1, M2, Duna and Duna 2 Auton’mia. Hungary has a population of 10 million with 93% mobile penetration. At the end of the trial, spectrum permitting, the two partners plan to go straight into launching a service.
On the Mobile TV front it is also worth noting that all 10 Asean countries (Association of South East Asian Nations) have agreed to use DVB-T for broadcasting terrestrial TV, and that gives a natural tendency for the same countries to adopt DVB-H, which can use the same head end, cabling and antennas, with new modulators and additional gap fillers.
This affects Brunei, Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and of these Vietnam has already implemented DVB-T and DVB-H, and Malaysia has had a DVB-H trial in Kuala Lumpa for almost two years, Singapore has already issued plans for a DVB-H mobile TV service, as has the Philippines.
These last four alone, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam represent a total population of over 222 million with around 62 million cellular users.