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 Iolo Jones, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Narrowstep shares some of his personal opinions with S&T on mobile services at the FIFA World Cup and a new deal between BT Vision and the English Premier League.
As the World Cup approaches and the media kicks up a frenzy, two rival video formats are being trialled in Germany for the event. Inevitably, the formats are not compatible and are closely tied into service providers, although Samsung is reportedly producing phones that work using both protocols.
The DMB standard has been adopted in the UK and Germany, whilst the rest of Europe is veering towards adopting DVB-H.
In South Korea, TV on the mobile phone has been around for years and takeup has been somewhat disappointing. The service seems to be price sensitive, with the major provider charging just $7. That's not a lot of money to spread around. Expect TV adverts on a phone near you in the not too distant future.
It's still my contention, however, that the phone will become more useful as a remote control and credit card. Mobile phones have a number of things going for them - they have decent built in security models (as long as you don't leave them in the back of a taxi), are carried everywhere by their users, provide centralised billings and can tell a service provider where the individual is. Already at Narrowstep we've developed broadband services that can be 'unlocked' and paid for by mobile phone.
It's not surprising to hear that Orange has finally made its move into the broadband market. With little infrastructure, it will need to pay off this strength in billing relationships as the company rolls out the broadband TV service already successfully deployed in France, to the UK. Expect other operators to follow. Creating an advantage  There's a programme on TV in the UK called 'The Worst Jobs in History'. Looking back some time from now, the task of launching and rolling out a new content service in 2006 may well qualify for a future edition of this show.
It is an unenviable task to try to take on strong, dominant incumbents in a market where the only advantage is the ability to spend a fortune of sports rights (or buy in US programming or - rarity of rarities - develop a hit series).
Recently, BT Vision teamed up with Sky to share the timeshifted rights to UK soccer. I find this a strange move on behalf of Sky – the broadcaster has shown a chink of light to a head on competitor, but with recent EU rulings it was always going to be difficult for Sky to retain its total dominance on all soccer rights. For all its recent problems, the English FA should be commended for running a very clever rights auction.
But let's stick with BT Vision. The company’s role is to launch a new internet-based service to rival offerings from digital terrestrial operator Freeview (BT Vision will be carrying all Freeview channels), Sky's satellite service and the combined businesses of Virgin Mobile, NTL and Telewest with their cable monopoly.
So, BT will need to offer a service that is, delivering more than existing services, reaching new audiences, cheaper than its rivals, offers better content and leverages its huge installed base.
In my home in the hills in Wales, the only option for digital TV is satellite - there is no cable and no digital terrestrial reception (why do I pay my TV licence?). However, I do have excellent broadband, so, I thought that by signing up for BT Vision I would have access to the 30 or so Freeview channels over my internet connection. But, no, you still receive these pictures to a traditional arial connected to your BT box.
So, the footprint just replicates that already available for traditional terrestrial transmission. That you can receive on your TV using a £30 box, or even on your PC using a £30 dongle.
Demos of the set top box have received good reviews - with the ability to 'network' and communicate with other viewers being seen as a key new feature, but all my experience indicates that people want to watch TV on their TVs and are not particularly interested in interacting. And acts such as thSkyKy + box are a tough act to follow.
The pioneers at Video Networks have been there already and have spent tens of millions gathering just a handful of customers, but BT does have an existing presence in most UK homes, deep marketing pockets and a practical monopoly even 20 years after de-nationalisation.
So, that leaves soccer - the answer to every channel manager's problems. But will the time shifted rights be enough? See http://iptvtimes.blogspot.com/ for more of Iolo Jones’ personal views
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