Swisscom launched its DVB-H mobile TV network in Switzerland on the back of the fanfare of the European Soccer Cup in Summer 2008. Now as the World Soccer Cup approaches it is ditching the technology in favor of 3GPP streaming, saying that no devices are available at the right price.
The decision will send waves of doubt through the European DVB-H community, even as multiple initiatives in Russia are about to get off the ground and more and more pressure is coming to bear on handset makers, particularly Nokia, to come up with cheaper devices. At Mobile World Congress recently, China’s ZTE was said to be preparing an ultra cheap TV phone using DVB-H for the European and African market but it has yet to emerge.
The news sneaked out as it became obvious that Swisscom was gearing up a new streaming service for the World Cup this Summer, with an offering of 9 CHF (Swiss Francs) a month for 34 TV channels, plus 5 CHF per live game. The service is now being offered from its web site for PCs and phones, and the company has aggressively pushed the iPhone (by making it cheaper) for viewing VoD. There are also 500 films and documentaries available from just 3.50 CHF a time.
Swisscom addressed the issue in a statement and made it clear that the existing DVB-H network would remain in place and not be dismantled, but the DVB-H service would not be sold any more. Insiders say that Swisscom has ignored the Nokia 5330, the cheapest DVB-H phone on sale in Europe and made it clear by its iPhone pricing that it wants to push streamed video. By leaving the network in place it may revisit that situation later but it will need exceptionally cheap DVB-H devices to make that happen.
The DVB-H network would have cost a considerable amount, probably as much as €50 million to build and it was based on Nokia and NEC transmitters in 26 locations, plus gap fillers and was launched in Zurich, Bern, Geneva and Basle in time for the European Cup.
One change that might have influenced the decision is the fact that Orange has acquired the previously TDC held Sunrise cellco in Switzerland, which means that it is likely that Orange will offer 50 or 60 streamed TV channels, as Vodafone already does there. Up against two of the largest cellcos in Europe, both famous for their faith in streaming mobile TV, Swisscom might have felt it had to go the same route.
Swisscom had so far adopted DVB-H for mobile TV in Switzerland and used Mediaroom for its IPTV services, at home France Telecom offers 63 mobile TV channels (in French so perfect for much of Switzerland) using 3GPP streaming, and has built its own IPTV system.
The rest of Europe remains in limbo over DVB-H broadcast mobile TV services ‘ with Germany potentially re-issuing the license it withdrew from Mobile 3.0 to T-Mobile, the Finland service taking almost 4 years to get off the ground and France in deadlock between the regulator and TDF about just how much of the country it has to cover.
Italy has been the only Western European country operating DVB-H services successfully since 2006, through two networks, one owned by 3 Italia and the other by MediaSet, which partners separately for two mobile TV bouquets with Telecom Italia Mobile and Vodafone Italia. 3 Italia is thought to have something just under 1 million customers, while few other operators in Europe have widespread adoption and TIM and Vodafone in Italy have negligible customers.
The Netherlands, through KPN, Austria through cellular operator One (Orange) and through 3 Austria, represented the new batch of countries which have launched DVB-H in Western Europe along with Swisscom, with Poland the next country due to go live. KPN is known to be concerned about the low take up and could follow Swisscom and drop it.
US encoder maker Harmonic said at IPTV World Forum that the service was built around its ProStream 4000 Multi-Screen Transcoder to turn MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) broadcast video into mobile and Internet formats.