TV On Mobiles: Not Yet There?

rustbear writes "It seems that perhaps Apple did their homework when they decided to downplay the video capabilities of the new iPod. The Guardian reports that "Most [British] people have no desire to watch television on mobile phones, preferring to use home computers to watch TV while on the internet, according to new research. Although 65% of British consumers surveyed cite the mobile phone as their most desired gadget, 70% of mobile owners said they did not want to watch television on their phone at all. Nearly 45% of consumers said they would watch TV on their home computer, because it enabled them to choose what they wanted to watch and when." Is the mainstream market not yet ready for portable video?"

Comments

Japan

[ajohnj1]

TV on mobiles have been 'there' in Japan for awhile now. It is pretty much a standard feature on all of the "free" phones you can get when you sign up for new service. Whether people actually watch TV on their phones is another question...

Re:North America different yet again

[Bruce Perens]

The first reason is that spectrum regulation for VHF and higher frequencies is not, in general, carried out on a global basis. Part of this is historical, and part that governments and their people want more versatility than global spectrum allocation would offer. Regulation for the convenience of manufacturers isn't a good idea, because they can handle the economies of scale in a whole nation's worth of customers. Regulation for the sake of roving devices and their users is a good idea.

The second reason is that a nation's own manufacturers lobby for their system. All of the D-AMPS 800 MHz base stations now seem to have gone to GSM because they can get more voice channels out of a single cell. Not because of the tiny minority of their users who roam internationally.

Bruce