Today’s telecom and mobile services are demanding increasing amount of bandwidth for successful delivery. In the wired realm, this means focusing on the bandwidth capacity of different network types. In the wireless realm, a more pertinent issue often is which of the finitely limited spectrums are available and for what type of services.

 

Spectrum was precisely the topic addressed Thursday by statements from a European industry group representing mobile service providers. GSM Europe (part of the larger GSM Association) responded to a recently published European Mobile Broadcasting Council (EMBC) report by calling for more spectrum to be made available for mobile television.

 

“Availability of frequencies and flexibility to allow suitable spectrum to be used for mobile TV have to be addressed as a matter of urgency in order to launch services as soon as possible,” GSM Europe chair Kaisu Karvala said in a statement.

 

GSM Europe said that the importance of spectrum being made available for mobile TV was one of the recommendations made in EMBC’s report, which examined many technical aspects of mobile broadcasting, including 3G video streaming, MBMS (Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service) and DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld), DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), and satellite. A lack of necessary spectrum, GSM Europe said, could limit the development of new mobile TV platforms.

 

The industry group in particular pointed out that currently, the manner in which DVB-H services are licensed requires use of UHF band spectrum (470-862MHz), which is used heavily for analog and digital broadcasting. According to GSM Europe, however, some countries have freed up certain frequencies in that band for mobile TV—and other countries should do the same.

 

While UHF offers potential for mobile TV, it’s not the only solution to the spectrum problem, Karvala stressed.

 

“It is important, however, that the availability of spectrum for mobile TV in the UHF band does not compromise the availability of the digital dividend for a wider range of services, including mobile broadband,” Karvala said.

 

GSM Europe recommended that part of the spectrum being released by switchover from analog to digital TV should be harmonized broadly for Europe-wide mobile telecom services.

 

“We are at a crucial point in time,” Karvala said. “The market window is open now, spectrum can feed the evolution of exciting services and innovative technical solutions – for the shorter term as well as for the long run.”

 

Mobile TV, GSM Europe said, has great potential for service providers. Mobile TV trials so far seem to indicate that sufficient interest exists to justify further development of such services.

“Mobile TV services can be offered through a variety of platforms and technologies and increasing convergence allows multiple technologies to coexist in one service proposition,” GSM Europe said. “This allows mobile operators to combine different technologies into an interactive mobile TV service.”