(24 June 2006 8:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Research recently conducted by In-Stat suggest that by 2010 end, mobile TV broadcast subscribers worldwide will reach 102 million, a giant leap from 3.4 million in 2006.

The market research firm stated that for cellular networks to deliver content that millions want to watch simultaneously requires much greater bandwidth than is currently available, thus, carriers are turning to mobile TV broadcast networks, which have a much lower cost per bit for video delivery.

According to an official release, recent research by In-Stat found the following:

- There are positives and negatives to each standard, but each has a vendor eco-system behind it to enable deployment today.
- 2005 was the year of the first deployments, with ongoing trials in many parts of the world.
- Mobile carriers, mobile TV network operators, and content providers will soon be testing business models to determine what mobile phone subscribers are willing to pay to watch and what advertisers are willing to pay to reach them.

In-Stat analyst Michelle Abraham says, "The greatest challenge for mobile TV broadcast operators is to acquire the spectrum necessary to offer services. Spectrum availability may determine which of four standards is chosen, and also impacts the business case for the deployment of a network."

The research, "Mobile TV Broadcasting Now Out of the Gate"
covers the worldwide market for mobile TV services. It includes forecasts for mobile broadcast TV subscribers, average revenue by subscriber and revenues by region through 2010. It also contains analysis of competing mobile broadcast technologies and current deployments and trials, adds the release.

In related research, In-Stat's January 2005 consumer survey found that over one in eight respondents expressed an interest in purchasing mobile video services even though those services were not yet available. Interest in mobile video outpaced all other applications such as gaming, downloadable music and broadcast music.

This research is part of In-Stat's Multimedia Broadband Service, which provides a worldwide, comprehensive perspective of multimedia broadband markets, analyzing cable, video-over-DSL, DBS, and IPTV services, and digital terrestrial broadcast. It examines subscribers, business models, industry agendas and key cross-market combatants, the release adds.