Qatar and the UAE test broadcasts to handheld devices

In ramping up for the Asian Games in December, Qatar launched a mobile broadcasting service covering the entire country. It is only the third country in the world to do so using the Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld (DVB-H) standard, which has been widely adopted across Europe and Asia.

The service, provided by state telecom provider QTel, was launched in late November, allowing access to 13 channels of news and entertainment. However, although the service was available free of charge to anyone with a handset that could receive it, those handsets were in short supply, with only 1,380 available for the Games.

QTel’s service could only be picked up at first by a special shipment of 1,380 Samsung SGH-P910 handsets, 1,080 of which were distributed by the Asian Games’ steering committee, while the remaining 300 were given by QTel to a group including beta-testers, QTel employees, members of the royal family and various other VIPs. “Demand for the Samsung handsets is sky-high worldwide,” says Ed Jennings, head of consumer multimedia for QTel. “We were lucky to get as many as we did.”

QTel expected to make the broadcasts compatible with the Nokia N92, which has been on the market since the middle of last year, starting in mid-December. “We didn’t start to support the Nokia phones because Samsung wanted to launch their handset during the games, but starting at the games’ close, we’ll be testing on all available handsets,” explains Henrik Hansen, QTel’s head of wireless marketing.

While QTel’s service is free to anyone who has a compatible set, it will go to a subscription basis some time in the second half of 2007. Some sort of system involving a scrambled signal and a lock/unlock mechanism will have to be put in place, says Jennings, adding that the precise details of how it will work are still under development.

“There’s been a very, very positive response,” says Hansen of the trial. “The broadcasts have had a fantastic picture quality and have been very reliable.”

The QTel broadcasts featured four Al Jazeera sports channels including two new channels added specifically to carry Asian Games coverage, as well as nine entertainment and news channels in both Arabic and English, including Al Jazeera Arabic and English, CNN, CNBC, Rotana Music, and the Cartoon Network.

Slightly earlier in November, UAE telecom provider Etisalat unveiled its DVB-H broadcasting service at the GITEX exhibition. The trial service, which extended for two kilometers around the Dubai World Trade Center, offered seven channels for the five days of the convention. Etisalat has announced a full roll-out in the second quarter of 2007. In the meantime, Du, the UAE’s other telecom, has announced a collaborative venture with Dubai Media City and Abu Dhabi TV to launch its own DVB-H network on a similar timescale.

Neither QTel, Etisalat, nor Du have announced yet what they intend to charge for their services.

The technology is brand-new, not only in the Arab world but globally. Gulf countries are likely to experience some of the same growing pains other early adopters have dealt with. QTel’s new service is not likely to be interoperable with Etisalat or Du’s service, according to Jennings.

“Setting up a mobile device to work in different countries won’t be as simple as changing out a SIM chip,” says Jennings.

The global picture

According to one recent study, by the IMS consulting group, there will be nearly half a billion mobile TV users by 2011. Korea was the first country in the world to adopt a digital mobile service, using its Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) protocol, with subscription-based satellite broadcasts starting in May 2005, and free terrestrial broadcasts by a competing consortium in December of that year. Satellite subscriptions, which cost $20 a month, were set to break one million by December, according to provider TU Media. The same mark had been reached by the terrestrial broadcasts as of June 2006, when the broadcasters reported that one million handsets had been sold.

Japan followed closely in Korea’s wake, starting broadcasts on its 1seg protocol in April of last year. However, the service has some serious problems, notably that it can’t be received on any vehicle moving faster than 20 kph. There has been some talk of Japan switching to the DMB protocol, which is also expected to be adopted in China. Another standard, MediaFLO, has seen limited trial runs in the United States and the UK.

Italy was the first country to roll out a commercial implementation of the DVB-H standard, an extension of the pervasive DVB-S (for Satellite) standard. Their commercial services went live in 2006. One of the three competing providers there, H3G, distributed 120,000 handsets in the first six weeks of the service. Vietnam and Finland have also announced DVB-H services for the end of 2006. According to the DVB-H consortium, trials of the service ran in 2006 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

Broadcasts versus downloads

Mobile broadcasting is distinct from the 3G networks available in some Arab countries, which allow mobile users to download or even stream live video across the cellular network. While it’s more flexible, downloaded video faces the problem that it can run out of bandwidth if there’s high demand in a small area. “Imagine you’re in a stadium and somebody scores a goal,” explains Emad Morcos, a consultant who worked on mobile development for Showtime Arabia. “Suddenly, everyone wants to download the highlight of the goal to their phone, and the whole system goes down.” With a DVB-H broadcast, any number of people would be able to tune their phones in without interfering with others’ ability to access the system.

However, a broadcast service like DVB-H needs a space on the airwaves to accommodate it. Freeing up a new frequency had previously required complicated international negotiations, particularly in the Gulf region. With the Gulf’s tiny, flat countries, and a humid climate that conducts radio waves hundreds of miles farther than they travel under normal conditions, a country like the UAE would have to negotiate with seven different neighboring states to make sure the new frequency didn’t interfere with their airwave usage.

A June 2006 meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) was devoted to straightening out these territorial issues in order to help Africa, Europe, and parts of Asia (including the Middle East) make the transition from analog to digital in their terrestrial broadcasting. A series of complex bilateral negotiations went forward in a September 2006 meeting in Oman, resulting in the countries having clear access to dozens of channels in the UHF and VHF frequencies.

These new channels will be split among regular digital television broadcasts, such as the services Saudi Arabia started broadcasting earlier last year, and mobile broadcasts. A single UHF or VHF channel can hold up to 25 channels of mobile-ready programming, in addition to six audio programs plus text-only datacasts, estimates Nasser Al Rashedi of the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.

Content and its discontents

Morcos says that Showtime’s content aggregation was primarily geared towards 3G downloads, but that it would be very easy for content providers to switch to producing for DVB-H distribution. He cited Rotana and MTV Arabia as two major players gearing their production towards mobile viewing.

Showtime’s research revealed that Arabic-language content was in the highest demand for mobile viewers, with some demand for English and Hindi. In terms of genres, news and sports were in the highest demand, along with downloadable games. Fiction was in less demand, with one important exception.

“We found a lot of demand for children’s programming,” says Morcos. “Especially in this region, with many children having their own cellular phones, it’s something to occupy them when they’re in the car or otherwise need something to do.”

Morcos envisions a system where downloads and broadcasting can be used in one subscription. “Imagine a woman watching Fashion TV on her mobile, who then decides that she wants to see all the designs from a particular designer,” he says. “She would have a regular subscription for say twenty dollars a month, and then would be able to download the specific designer’s video for a small extra charge.”