While Europe is three years into the hype curve for Mobile TV, and still has not delivered very much in the way of a useful consumer experience, the US market is still unsettled and players worry about the shape the market will take there. The situation is therefore still extremely fluid and changes week to week.
This week, although there were no official moves, was no different, and AT&T has now told the Mobile TV community privately that it has dismantled the DVB-H trial that it had been running in Las Vegas, which it inherited when it bought the 12 MHz of Aloha Partners’ spectrum last year. At the time it looked like AT&T would use the US wide spectrum either as part of an LTE network in the distant future, or to mount a surprise attack on the Mobile TV market using DVB-H. That latter move now appears highly unlikely. That is not to say that AT&T has definitely decided not to pursue its own Mobile TV efforts. First it had to see through its commitment to launch Mobile TV services through MediaFLO, which it duly did two weeks ago, which will help it gain experience.
Now opinion is divided on just how AT&T will try to dominate Mobile TV going forwards. It appears to be in a ‘wait and see’ mode. The only decision is HAS taken is that it won’t use DVB-H. We have also made the case a few weeks ago that once Dish networks goes ahead and adopts a hybrid L-Band 700 MHz strategy for Mobile TV using the Alcatel-Lucent DVB-SH technology this would mean it would no longer be an effective partner for AT&T. A partnership with Dish works if Dish uses S-Band spectrum and plants terrestrial transmitters on AT&T base station sites, which will now not happen.
The L-Band 700 MHz hybrid decision is very much endorsed by the fact that we are told that Dish has taken an option to use the Modeo New York network which was leased off to financial groups when Crown Castle’s Modeo shuttered that service. We had suggested this was a good idea, since it is in close enough spectrum to the L-Band Dish donated to Mobile Satellite Service TerreStar, when it took a holding in that company, so that a single radio could access both a satellite delivered service and the New York Modeo network.
AT&T also has an abundance of 700 MHz spectrum, and while it could use some of that for Mobile TV the dumping of the HiWire trial makes it clear that it doesn’t really believe there is a business model to support using such expensive spectrum in that way.
By far the most likely outcome is that AT&T will embrace ATSC M/H when it emerges in the US, and back the provision of the relevant handsets in all of its bundles, subsidized or not, taking all the pressure off it for a definitive dominance move in Mobile TV prior to that happening. The merging of the two ASTC M/H candidate technologies by Samsung and LG last week makes this even more likely, because this is now building momentum.
We have heard the opinion voiced this week that this step should be seen as a Samsung capitulation. That opinion has it that LG was winning the OMVC technical trials, and was about to be selected as the US ATSC Mobile Handheld standard, so the mighty Samsung was persuaded to give up it’s A-VSB offering and throw in its lot with LG. We think this is highly unlikely. Harris, the US transmitters side of the company, which is partnering with LG on a joint offering with its Mobile Pedestrian Handheld (MPH) ATSC offering, has said that it could adapt to the rival standard in just 90 days, and said that it will go ahead and launch its digital exciter in August, and deliver the new standard in November ‘ a drag time of 90 days. It seems likely that the best elements of the two standards will be hashed into a single standard by October, and that neither side can claim a victory.
What the OMVC did discover (the group made up of US broadcasters testing the candidate technologies) was that the system worked in trials at driving speeds and as far as 40 miles from the transmitter, and that the mobile signal does not interfere with regular digital TV broadcasts.
And just as AT&T felt compelled to follow the Verizon lead into Mobile TV using MediaFLO, Verizon will be equally compelled to embrace ATSC M/H to maintain its own competitiveness.
Another possibility we have heard in discussion is the idea that AT&T might also look to buy ICO Communications, which has already launched its satellite, purely for S-Band Mobile TV services, initially to car seat backs, which uses the same type of technology as Dish (Alcatel-Lucent’s DVB-SH) in S-Band spectrum. While it is fair to say that Craig McCaw, who indirectly controls ICO, has made a good living out of creating services and then selling them to AT&T, his real investment right now is Clearwire, lined up as it is as a direct rival to AT&T wired and wireless services. He is unlikely to undermine any edge that Clearwire has in the market, such as its own Mobile TV strategy ready made, by selling it to the opposition.
So it looks like the US will have ATSC for free to air broadcasts, Dish with a huge paid satellite/hybrid service footprint, and a residue of specialist options such as ICO and satellite radio video, with a residue of the first to market MediaFLO customers.