MILTON, Ont. – Wireless distributor Look Communications today announced that Milton, Ont is the first mobile broadcast town in Canada.
The company, owned by unique Broadband Systems, has launched demo sites for mobile TV in and around its broadcast centre on the edge of Milton, a small town just north of Oakville and west of Mississauga.
Look’s Mobile Multi Media (M3) van offers live TV to four separate personalized screens permitting each passenger to individualize their viewing of live video and to listen to audio channels. Look and UBS believe that their Mobile TV, as viewed on its demonstration sites for now, is a major improvement over the streamed, slow-framed, min-screen TV currently offered by cellular carriers in Canada.
"Cellular phone TVs are not receiving or providing ‘at home’ TV-quality video since their networks were not designed for broadcasting," said Gerald McGoey, vice-chairman and CEO of Look as well as UBS. "The cellular networks are one-to-one, unicast networks with limited capacity for quality mobile TV. Look Mobile TV will have the advantage of a live broadcast network, with content and programs available to Look, which is presently broadcasting over 100 video channels under its broadcast license."
The companies expect that the M3 network will consist of two networks – a broadcast network and a broadband network, according to the press release. They further expect that the broadcast network will allow for the mass distribution of content, information and entertainment, regardless of how many customers are receiving and listening.
The M3 network, says the release, is likely to ultimately provide two-way access to the Internet and applications such as VOIP and webcasting, meaning what is currently brought into your home on your computer, TV, stereo or phone might soon be available, in Ontario and Québec, where Look is licensed, in your hand.
Look’s new Mobile TV is expected to be the first application for the company’s M3 experience and Look expects to follow it up with mobile broadband – bringing customers what they want, when they want it and where they want it. "In this regard, handsets are currently being developed by a number of major companies and are expected to encompass a variety of personal devices," says the release.
While Look can offer Mobile TV under its existing license, in order to provide mobile broadband, it would have to apply to Industry Canada for authorization to provide such services, the granting of which would be subject to a reorganization of the 2500-2690 MHz spectrum band and the return to Industry Canada of approximately 33% of Look’s current spectrum.
This process has already been approved by Industry Canada in a recent policy statement, as reported by cartt.ca.
With its combination of a broadcast license, approximately 100 MHz of spectrum, and DVB-H knowledge and understanding, the company is positioned to offer M3, currently in a moving vehicle and eventually in the customer’s hand, provided that, among other things, the required funding is obtained.
Because right now, it only works as long as you don’t leave Milton (pop. 31,000).
Look’s services and network are expected to be device agnostic, as well, adds the release. Focus groups have said that they would like to have a separate M3 device and not necessarily only their cellular phone. Customers will be able to choose whether they would like to receive mobile TV on their phone, laptop, computer, personal video recorder or other devices currently under development.
"Live mobile TV services in the United States, and even more so in Canada, are far behind those currently provided in Korea and parts of Europe. The Companies believe that cellular operators throughout Europe and the United States are realizing that their cellular networks are incapable of providing real-time mobile TV and that their infrastructure is unprepared for mass-market delivery of video over the Internet on their networks. In the opinion of The Companies, the cellular providers’ switched networks, as well as their limited access to spectrum, are problematic when attempting to deliver mobile TV with quality equivalent to the customer’s at-home experience," says the release.
Mobile TV networks are being built in the United States by organizations such as Crown Castle, with its Modeo services, and Qualcomm. The Companies believe that technology is not the issue, and that the real issues remain content, the ability to broadcast and the necessary spectrum to provide Mobile Multi Media.
"Until now, mobility has largely been seen as something available only through cellular providers. We believe this could soon change," added McGoey.
The Look statement continued, saying the companies "believe that Mobile Multi Media has the potential to introduce new players to the industry, to deal both directly and interactively with audiences. Mobile Multi Media can provide print media, such as the publishers of directories, with a real-time, personalized, mobile, interactive, ever-changing data bank, rather than the current printing of a book once per year.
"We may well be at the dawn of a new era in which broadcasters, cellular service providers, content providers and Mobile Multi Media network providers should all develop new business models," McGoey said. "We are very excited to be part of this transformation taking place in these industries and we look forward to further developing our M3 network."
