Optus trialling digital video broadcast to mobile phones

According to a report by Stuart Corner, Optus trialling digital video broadcast to mobile phones. This uses Nokia N96 phones and the DVB-H standard. The trial is providing nine programmes. It should be noted that this technology is not using the Internet, or the mobile telephone network for carrying the video, it uses a 7MHz UHF TV broadcast channel (which can carry up to 30 programmes).

Given that the pubic broadcasters (ABC and SBS) and the Free to air TV stations are not using all the spectrum they have already been allocated for TV, there does not seem to be much point in allocating more spectrum to another rival form of TV. The customers for a mobile phone TV service would assume it is carried over the Internet and provides "on demand" Internet type service, they will be rightly disappointed when they find it is just old fashioned TV. The Australian Government has allowed trials, but not rushed to allocate spectrium for this new service and rightly so as no one is likely to want it.