By Steven James May
REMEMBER WHEN YOU COULD take a little TV set with you, put its antenna up and presto – your local TV stations would flicker to life (perhaps inside a tent) for no fee? With a little innovation and work, those days are returning with digital broadcast and mobile devices, except for here in Canada, that is.
With our country’s ATSC digital television transition in mandatory digital markets now complete (excluding CBC/Radio-Canada), these regions are ripe for ATSC Mobile DTV (MDTV) broadcasting. While ATSC digital television broadcasting allows for the distribution of both SD and HD digital television signals, it is best suited for stationary television sets. In order to distribute ATSC DTV signals to non-stationary MDTV-enabled receivers such as mobile phones, portable TVs, laptops and tablets, television broadcasters must first convert their standard DTV signal to MDTV (many DTV transmitters are “MDTV ready” and are able to broadcast both DTV and MDTV signals thanks to multiplexing).
According to the U.S.-based Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), one of the benefits of MDTV signals is that they can be received and held by MDTV-enabled mobile devices moving at speeds of over 100 mph (160 km/h), making them ideal for television viewing on speeding trains, buses and in automobiles.
The OMVC notes that MDTV trials by Samsung and Sprint using an Android-powered Samsung Moment cell phone commenced in 2010 and more than 100 local television broadcasters are now offering MDTV signals across the United States, bringing mobile television content to 46 American cities. Other device manufacturers such as RCA are also selling MDTV-enabled portable TVs such as their 3.5-inch Mobile DTV/ATSC Hybrid Pocket Digital TV.
By late 2012, American broadcasters working under the Mobile Content Venture (MCV) there are set to launch a new MDTV service called Dyle Mobile TV (something Cartt.ca reported on here back in April). Working with device manufacturers, this new service will be made available in 35 US markets, bringing free over-the-air MDTV signals to 50% of America’s population, according to Dyle.
Compared to the United States, the MDTV broadcast landscape looks quite barren in Canada. Apart from some sporadic testing by the likes of CTV and CBC/Radio-Canada in a few digital markets , MDTV continues to elude the average Canadian television viewer. A lack of MDTV signals in Canada (unless you live in Windsor, Ontario, for example, and are within the signal footprint of MDTV signals originating from Detroit – and have been over the border to an electronics store to buy the right gadget), combined with the fact that wireless carriers and electronics stores in Canada do not currently offer their customers MDTV-enabled devices, this free, digital, mobile video option remains almost wholly unknown in the country.
Instead, the approach taken to mobile television in Canada is best exemplified by the recently launched Bell Mobile TV. The Bell approach involves the delivery of content from otherwise free over-the-air television channels such as CTV and CTV Two through a Bell subscriber’s cellular phone network rather than a free over-the-air MDTV broadcast signal (as well as content from their specialty services). According to Bell service agents, in order for a Bell customer to receive Bell Mobile TV they must first be signed up to a data plan (the cheapest Bell data plan being $40 per month) and pay an additional $5 a month for 10 hours of Bell Mobile TV delivered via a 3.5G cellular network.
To put Bell’s mobile television approach into perspective, a Greater Toronto Area (GTA) commuter who watches 45 minutes of CTV each weekday on her Bell phone as a passenger on a bus, train or in an automobile, for example, would hit her 10 hour monthly cap within 14 weekdays. With additional Bell Mobile TV viewing beyond 10 hours per month billed by Bell at $1 per hour, it would cost this hypothetical GTA commuter approximately $53 per month, or more than $600 a year, to watch CTV on a mobile phone, provided only 45 minutes of Bell Mobile TV was viewed each weekday and none at all on weekends.
In contrast, if CTV was delivered over-the-air to mobile devices in Toronto via MDTV broadcasting, the same hypothetical GTA commuter could watch an unlimited number of hours of CTV for $0 (provided Bell or other carriers offered MDTV-enabled phones, or Canadian retailers sold USB-plug-in devices like the Siano one pictured at right, which is available Stateside). Similarly, if the CBC were to offer over-the-air MDTV signals of NHL games in markets where they currently have digital television transmitters, Canadians could watch NHL hockey free to air on MDTV devices outside of the home.
Although the above-noted Canadian MDTV viewing scenarios may sound appealing, they are nothing more than a distant fantasy in Canada. In light of Canada’s vertically integrated broadcasting system and patchwork of digital television transmitters, MDTV is unlikely to emerge in the country without a Made in Canada version of an OMVC-style collective consisting of Canadian BDUs, independent television broadcasters, mobile device manufactures and wireless carriers.
Steven James May is a PhD Candidate in Communication & Culture at Ryerson and York Universities. Visit his DTV blog here or follow him on Twitter @stevenjmay.
