Mobile TV Development: How to drive it ?

1. Mobile TV Development:How to drive it ? John Yip Chief Engineer Radio Television Hong Kong 10 March, 2008

2. Mobile TV Anywhere Personal Interactive Mobile TV A natural extension of services on the ubiquitous mobile phone: it’s video@interactive.anywhere

3. Delivery Systems Frequency Bands VHF, UHF, L-band, S-band ISDB-T, DVB-T/H/T2, ATSC-M/H, CMMB, S/T-DMB, MediaFLO Broadcast Systems Cellular Systems 3G, MBMS/ Tdtv, 3.5G/ HSDPA, WiMax, LTE and UMB

4. Delivery and handsets • In-band systems offer economic benefits; common network resource sharing. • Dual-band handsets for both terrestrial UHF (urban areas) and satellite S-band (rural areas) eg DVB-SH and CMMB. • Multi-standard handsets also add flexibility. • Single 65nm SoC IC available soon, supporting multiple worldwide Mobile TV standards (ISDB-T, DVB-H, T-DMB etc.) in VHF, UHF and L bands.

5. Generic Growth Equation • Generic growth equation for digital broadcast technology was introduced (in ABU DTV2007) Driving Force (DF) = Function (soft and hard factors) = M (r, p, m, o) * H (G, g) Regulatory (r) Pricing (p) Marketing (m) Others (o) Macroeconomic (G) Geo-physical (g) Driving Force

6. Generic Growth Equation • For Mobile TV in a city, Driving Force: DFm= Mm (r, p, m, o) * GDP/capita * T where T, Terrain Factor (0 < T =< 1) , is a retarding factor. For comparing cities, GDP/capita could be in PPP.

7. Generic Growth Equation – Soft factors

8. Generic Growth Equation Technology, as reflected in pricing, device attributes and quality, is not explicitly expressed. Consumers do not care about technology per se.

9. Metrics • Example: using the concept of a 5-point scale for assessment (from ITU-R BS.1284-1) Applying metrics to IPTV in a hypothetical city : r = 5, p = 4, m = 5, o = 3.9 (“o” being the geometric mean of the 4 sub-factors: Content = 5, Consumer habits = 3, Device attributes = 4, Quality = 4) So, geometric mean of the 4 soft factors (r, p, m, o) = 4.4 (Any one “bad” factor or sub-factor ruins the growth; zero point is allowed and one zero reduces DF to zero.)

10. Growth of IPTV in Hong Kong (as an example where the Driving Force is high)

11. Drive it - for Sustainable Growth • Rapid penetration does not translate directly to fast revenue generation. • Churn rate can be high in Mobile TV. • Generate a critical mass with penetration pricing plus heavy promotion, followed by affordable and smart bundling of high-tier content.High-tier content must be attractive, exclusive. • Value-added services are necessary.

12. Government / Broadcaster / Telecom Operator : a tri-partie relation • In digital broadcast development, a “triangle” may be found among the government, broadcaster and telco. • This tri-partie relation could be translated into: regulatory frame-work, content services and network / terminal services. Government Broadcaster Telco

13. Government / Broadcaster / Telco • A government is often pivotal in the successful rollout of new digital broadcasts in a country: UK DAB and DTT S. Korea T-DMB ATSC USA Japan ISDB-T

14. Further example • China has a high HDTV affordability index (AI) at country level, despite a relatively modest GDP/capita. • CCTV has introduced in Jan. 2008 a free national / general HDTV channel, prior to Olympics 2008, this easing consumers’ entry to HDTV.

15. Government • A government could foster digital TV development by minimizing regulatory barriers and licence fees. One may recall the Coase Theorem (ABU DTV2007). • If development is slow, the government may push it, subjected to social cost-benefits. • The catch: under a weak business model, services collapse when the subsidy subsides. • The government could orchestrate consumer-education and provide support.

16. Broadcaster  Telecom Operator • Telco is a key player in some TV technologies eg IPTV, Mobile TV. • Cooperation is beneficial: cellular network for return path and for generating revenue. • Poor cooperation leads to one party going it alone, eg telco taking over content + network/ terminal services, or broadcaster taking over content + distribution services. • The new digital era of triple/quad play places new demands on cooperation.

17. Terrain Factor • The Terrain factor (T) for a city has been difficult to evaluate. • Signal path-loss models exist eg Okumura-Hata model, empirical COST-Walfisch-Ikegami model, etc.; they are mathematically complex and do not provide a simple index. • A heuristic approach based on Buildings is hence proposed, for a simple index. • T is assumed to be a function of building density and building heights.

18. Terrain Factor T (city) = Function (D, H) = Function of √(D*H) ie using geometric mean • Dis the building density (Buildings/A), where A = area (sq. km) available for construction, • H = non-linear grading point for buildings/A. (Skyline ranking: www.emporis.com/en/bu/sk/st/sr Points are given to buildings of 12 floors or more, with a max. of 600 points for a builidng of 100+ floors.)

19. Terrain Factor • The nth root of [√(D*H)] is taken to be T, to reflect its weight in the generic equation. • Sample results are shown in Table 1, for n = 10. Changing n does not alter the ranking. • In Table 1, Hong Kong ranks highest with T = 0.53, whilst for Beijing T =1 (the reference). • For comparison, the same band eg UHF applies.

20. Table 1 : Terrain factor (T), for buildings

21. Mobile Reception Tests (HK) • Hong Kong is a densely built-up city, with a population density ranking third in the world, at 6,350/ sq. km (average), reaching over 50,000/sq. km in some areas. • Its building density (D), based on available construction area, is one of the highest in the world. • Mobile reception tests have been conducted (Ref.: OFTA, www.ofta.gov.hk/en/report-paper-guide/report/technical.html)

22. Mobile Reception Tests (HK) • First 3 sets of mobile test results : (i) Satisfactory outdoors (VHF 11B, SFN, 384 kbps DAB video); (ii) Satisfactory outdoors (UHF Ch. 47, DVB-H, QPSK, code rate ½), for 90% locations. Indoor reception: extra 16 dB mean loss at 14 locations and reception failed at 50% locations, at distances > 5m from the first wall of building, near ground levels;

23. Mobile Reception Tests (HK) (iii) Satisfactory outdoors (using similar parameters), but indoor reception requiring extra 16 dB signal could not be assured in the vicinity of the test routes. (Additional results have been released in March, 2008) • Hence, reception in open areas seems satisfactory but indoor reception is major issue to be tackled.

24. Indoor Reception • The law of diminishing returns applies to investment in improving indoor coverage. • Cellular streaming on 3G/ 3.5G could supplement. Stop-gap measures: WiFi (802.11) indoor repeaters. • In future, WiMax, LTE and UMB, using OFDM and MIMO on cellular wireless, could enhance indoor TV viewing on mobile devices eg using femtocells (low power home base stations) on 3G or Mobile WiMax. • Consumer habits need to be studied to assess subscriber demand, delivery alternatives and the business case.

25. Mainland China • Over 520M mobile subscribers and 80M high-end mobile phones. • Dazzling potential for Mobile TV. • Broadcast mode has advantages over cellular mode, ie without network-speed bottlenecks. • Standardization is evolving as systems are being assessed.

26. Hong Kong • DTT with HDTV was rolled out, from Dec. 31, 2007. • Uses the Chinese National Standard GB 20600-2006. • An extension of the synergy to Mobile TV could help improve the economies of scale in implementation and also in Mobile TV roaming.

27. Summary • Mobile TV offers mobility and interactivity for personal viewing: a natural service extension. • Broadcast Mobile TVtechnologies can provide economical multi-channel services to an unlimited number of viewers without bottlenecks as in cellular networks. • A successful business model for sustained growth is likely to involve the telco for generating revenue from interactivity. • Techno-economic issuesand theTerrain factorhave been elaborated and exemplified.

28. Drive yourmobileTV hard and make it fly .... Thank you. IPTV Development HDTV Development Digital TV Development Searchable on Google, etc. (Use slide show and  to animate.)