As we become increasingly disenchanted with Mobile TV, there is a lingering acceptance that streaming video services over mobile are here to stay. Streaming services eat up 3G and HSDPA network capacity and so some way of multicasting the main TV channels HAS to become accepted practise. Across the 17 or so technologies aimed at getting video onto mobile phones, those which continue to have some momentum are those entirely controlled by a cellular operator with no broadcaster involved, and those which support 3GPP streaming in some way.
One such promising technology is IMB (Integrated Mobile Broadcast) the next generation standard which embraces MBMS multicasting, which was been pioneered by UK firm IP Wireless, but which hit a standoff, because it was solely for use on unpaired TDD 3G spectrum. The creation of the IMB standard meant that it could just as easily be used in FDD spectrum without change, which meant that other proposed approaches, for instance that of Ericsson, would also adhere to the same standard as those that IP Wireless has pursued through its TDtv product line.
IP Wireless was recently owned by US WiMAX chip maker and spectrum speculator Nextwave, and under its protection appeared to have a future until Nextwave ran out of money and put all of its spectrum up for sale, and sold IP Wireless off to management. Since then we have known that any chance that an IMB service would come into being would be punctuated by IP Wireless getting a decent amount of funding capital, and this week that has arrived in the form of a $15.5 million Series A round led by Spark Capital of Boston.
“Securing over $15 million in financing during these turbulent financial times speaks to our solid business model, our proven team, and the tremendous growth opportunities that our unique platform and capabilities continue to create,” said Dr. Bill Jones, CEO of IPWireless. “3GPP standards are unequivocally the leading global solution for wireless carriers. However, while the large wireless vendors continue to focus on mainstream spectrum bands and traditional markets for their 3GPP solutions, IPWireless is expanding the benefits of this leading standard into untapped spectrum bands and opening the door to a new generation of mobile applications, devices, and ecosystems looking to capitalize on the explosive wireless market.”
Put simply what he means is that the 5 MHz of unpaired TDD spectrum which most 3G licenses were allocated, is the IP Wireless target area and our understanding of this is that it requires a new $10,000 transmitter at about one in three base stations and a fresh chip inside each handset. But this can release a huge data delivery vehicle which does not interfere with two way cellular spectrum or borrow from its capacity. We understand that if existing FDD capacity is used then no extra transmitter is required and no extra chip is required in the handset, because existing HSDPA chips can work with the underlying IMB services once version 8 of the bases station software is installed. This is perhaps how conventional base station suppliers see multicasting coming to 3G handsets, with a small part of each base station’s spectrum allocated to a shared one way data channel, which might easily be a platform for video delivery.
By multicast this means that video can be delivered to the first handset which requests it as a TV channel and then it can be shared with anyone else that wants to watch this channel without any further capacity being used.
The IP Wireless system can do the same, except that we think it needs the extra transmitter capacity and the extra chip in the handset. Either system can offload huge amounts of video traffic from unicast 3GPP streaming, and the only real reason for IP Wireless to get funding of this type is because one of the operators remains interested in its core video technology or in its other data delivery capabilities.
IPWireless has also used this same TDD approach to deliver mobile broadband for public safety services for government networks around the world, including New York City’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) which supports 19 US agencies with broadband applications. IP Wireless also has some deployments in 700MHz in the US for rural broadband and public safety agencies and has used its TDD offerings for traffic light backhaul and automatic vehicle location. So it’s not all video by any means.
But our hopes are that this money pipeline keeps alive the TDtv class of service which is supposed to be on trial in West London with over 2,000 people. This uses the spare 5MHz of TDD spectrum that both Orange and T-Mobile have in the UK, and turns it into 28 TV channels.
Unfunded there was no way that Orange could have continued this trial into a fully fledged service, but now the company has money, it makes that outcome a real possibility. If that service goes to launch it will include 14 free TV channels receivable by handsets and 14 paid channels, and some of the free channels may be used to offload unicast TV traffic from the existing cellular signal.
Orange offers 63 TV channels in its native France and this has created massive network capacity issues for the carrier, which has made it remain ahead of the upgrade curve for HSDPA, or risk shutting out customers from either viewing TV or taking calls. It has always hoped that the TDtv technology of IP Wireless might give it back big chunks of its 3G network capacity. We would expect that once there is more commitment to IP Wireless services for either broadband or for video, the company will be acquired by one of the larger, stable equipment suppliers.