3G license part III - France's fourth wedding or a funeral ?

France's NRA, the ARCEP, reopened the 3G beauty contest for a fourth license : previous tenders were launched in August 2000 (SFR and Orange got their pass in June 2001) and December 2001 (Bouygues Telecom in December 2002). The price tag remains at EUR 619.2M (+1% of the turnover afterwards), and the first contenders look as French as the 3 incumbents.
They also look less like "beauty pageants" than like brides looking for grooms : even with reasonable coverage obligations (Bouygtel still hasn't launched but must cover 20% by April 2007), 2G national roaming agreements, and site sharing opportunities, neither Iliad / Free nor Noos / Numericable can really afford 3G as they are today, especially with their ambitious FTTH rollout plans. Iliad and Noos are even considering same-sex marriage to strenghten their position on the French market.

Who would invest in a greenfield venture with such tenderfeet ? At a time when even a Vodafone takes some distance with network management ?

Actually, the main bidders are the 3G license holders who want to get a slice of spectrum leftovers and pushed for the consultation last year. What's up for grabs ? 2*15 MHz FDD + 5 MHz TDD in the 2 GHz range. Note the FDD and TDD thing, plus the "UMTS" title over the ARCEP communique : if you intend to seize the opportunity and promote an alternative 3G technology, go knock at some other door*.

So here we have a minister saying "let them now speak, or forever remain silent" without even having a marriage to perform. Actually, his job seems to make sure no wedding will ever take place.

France is too busy filing for divorce with new entrants. And as usual, people are fighting over child care. No price tag is set yet for this not-born / not-borne spectrum. Fish to fry and money to collect for France's next president.

Big operators also put a lock on digital radio : the government seems to be pushing T-DMB instead of DAB, more popular among small players. The winners in digital TV (TNT) were also major players (TF1, France Televisions, Canal+, Lagardere...). Everywhere, infrastructure and operating know-how remain the best barriers to entry. To become a big fish in the pond, you either have to invest in them (ie NRJ Group with Towercast) or to build a media empire as quickly as possible (ie Bollore).

* 3G is mentioned in the ARCEP annex as IMT 2000. The recent courting of the ITU by WiMAX (see "3G & 4G - WiMAX flirts with ITU" - 20070303) adds some spice to the affair, considering Free already holds WiMAX licenses (recycled WLL).

Movio Modio Modeo

Following their Pittsburgh, PA trials, Modeo LLC (the new name for Crown Castle Mobile Media) will launch DVB-H services (including audio and video podcasting) across 30 US markets (including NYC) by the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, BT released some data from their BT Movio DAB trials (1,000 users) : unsurprisingly enough considering the technology and the services, digital radio was more popular than digital TV with 90 mns per week vs 66. 50% of the time, mobile TV is home TV, with a 6 P.M. prime time... One should wonder whether the age of broadband - at least one screen in every room - will make this kind of usage irrelevant, but up to now, the Korean case proved mobile TV usages could bloom even in the dead middle of the broadband home / office spheres. The fact is mobile TV is more personal TV than the set in a teenager's bedroom, mobile TV is more seamless than TV on the go. Two thirds of BT Movio users would pay £8 per month for the service (translation : reality would put that around one fourth max, especially when they learn digital radio will be free), and one third would change for an operator with this service (make that one third max).
Because of BT's intense PR, Nokia are already asked why they chose DVB-H over DAB, whilst the latter is clearly out of the global race for mobile TV. Mainstream medias don't even mention DMB, Nokia's and DVB's biggest competitor. For the moment, argumentation appears like a walk in the park for Nok-Nok.

Bridging T-DMB & DAB, Hallyuwood & Bollywood, Korea and the UK

April 2006 : digital broadcasting trials will start in the UK with an explosive DAB-Combo bringing together an impressive crowd from Europe's leading media country and the world's leading broadband country :

• From the UK : Orange, BT Livetime, Ariqva, Frontier Silicon, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Virgin Radio, GCap Media, Emap, Celador, and even SMG Television (producers vith a Bollywood flavor)...


• From Korea : the twin towers (Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.), the ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), a few start-ups specialized in DMB / video solutions (Perstel Inc.*, Timetek Inc. / WithUSTech, Pixtree Technologies Inc)...

UK logically brings a key MNO (whose interest in DMB seems consistent with France Telecom R&D's vision as exposed last January), but no European manufacturer. I'm not so sure Nokia are enjoying this after the T-DMB trials announced in France (this year) or Germany (next year).

Diplomatically and smartly** enough, T-DMB is presented as an application of the WorldDAB Eureka 147 standard, the DAB designed by UK researchers. So the trial users will receive European "DAB" digital radio and video on their mobile handsets.

Food for thought for those who considered the UK and Korea as traditional entry points for US technologies in Europe and Asia...

* sponsored by Samsung Venture Investment Company and STIC Ventures, established a UK subsidiary 3 years ago
** nothing to do with Ireland's new entrant Smart Mobile (UMTS 'B' license - 53% coverage by October 2011 - the equivalent of the country's top five cities).

TDD & TDMB, not so TDous

After all, TDMB still has a chance in Europe. Part of the lobbying I mentioned about LG is about the easiness of piggybacking on existing DAB networks, whilst DVB spectrum remains to be seen. And LG are starting this month a T-DMB trial in Regensburg, Germany, supposedly under the helm of the EU IST CELTIC Project, CELTIC standing for Cooperation for a European sustained Leadership In Telecommunications. I guess Nokia appreciates the joke, especially since they are part of CELTIC's Core Group (the same can be said about BT, FT or Telefonica). And CELTIC's "Call 2 projects tackling convergence" still includes WingTV, a program devoted to Nokia's DVB-UMTS integration. Fixed incumbents are already involved in such trials, but they are also busy taking shares of IPTV market as quickly as possible in a competitive DSL world. France Telecom's MaLigne TV could go international with a more colorful branding (the color of a juicy fruit, for instance), and Telefonica's Imagenio could leverage on the operator's reconquista of the Americas. Mobile broadcasters will be stronger if they already are strong IPTV leaders...
TD-CDMA have been back from the dead for months : Orange in France, T-Mobile in the Czech Republic, Nextel in Washington D.C.... even Japan reserved the 2GHz spectrum for IP Wireless' beloved technology. TDD could prove a quick fix for such US players as Sprint-Nextel or T-Mobile : W-CDMA is on its way (in different bands) and the HSDPA -HSUPA have the favor of many GSM players, but TDD could deliver earlier and cheaper coverage without major spectrum hurdles (especially compared to demanding HSUPA). Beyond data cards or dongles, handsets are yet to be found, and the industry needs more than IPW partnerships with Atmel or Teleca to solve this.

Row vs Wide(band)

Enough of Korea's DMB ! Let's see how Europe's DVB-H is doing.
The ETSI's official mobile TV techno since last year, DVB-H was considered more suitable than UMTS (capacity is an issue, even with the release 6 and MBMS - Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service), DAB (the name sums it up : A stands for Audio and V for Video*), or Korea's DMB (even DMB-S requires costly terrestrial re-transmitters for an efficient coverage... and operators DO have to roll out UMTS anyway). Besides, the techno was pushed by a European player with kind of a telecom background : Nokia.
Nokia 7710 s were used for the bulk of the early trials of DVB-Handeld :

• an international triple play last year : M1 in Singapore, Sonera - Elisa in Finland and the more surprising Crown Castle in Pittsburgh.
• a spectacular spring-summer season featuring Canal+ (w SFR) and TPS (w Bouygues & Orange) in France or Telefonica in Spain
• a much awaited september trial with Ariqva's (formerly NTL Broadcast) : it's in Oxford, Shorts** are provided and O² capacity is required but the 500 users shouldn't have to row (Nokia said the batteries were powerful enough)

The US are clearly a key market : this is the place where all technos cohabit, where broadcasters rule over mobilecos... and if I can make it there I'll make it anywhere***.

No wonder the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) published a paper on "How Korean Telecom Companies Can Enter the US Satellite DMB Market ". The US have the same digital broadcasting standards as Korea for TV (ATSC or 8-VSB is different from Europe's DVB or Japan's ISDB - among the promoters of this "US HDTV" are USDTV), but for radio they have HD Radio (datacasting over digital radio as developed by iBiquity : terrestrial or satellite, XM Radio and Sirius Satellite leading on the sat side) instead of Korea's DMB or Japan's ISDB. Korea seems to dump ATSC for DMB for TV as well but since DVB-S already proved sustainable with SKYLife they gave DVB-H a symbolic try : KBS were the only broadcasters to play with the Ministry (MIC) and two broadcasting associations (the Korean Broadcasting Committee and the United Broadcasting Union). Of course, they are now playing along the others on DMB.

Nokia's approach of the US market doesn't look much impressive at first sight : I had to do something in the US but couldn't clinch any deal with any mobileco, so I took a towerco along with Idetic's MobiTV (major channels for $10 a month). But Crown Castle are a key partner for Verizon or Cingular in the US, and also an operator since they own their own frequencies : they paid $12.6M for a 10 year terrestrial license (5MHz, L-Band spectrum 1440-1790 MHz). Crown Castle also selected DiBcom for PC accesses, a French company seen at 3GSM and backed by an interesting crew : France's SGAM & Credit Agricole, USA's Freescale / Motorola Ventures, Australia's Convergent Technologies, Israel's Vertex Management, and Germany's Cipio Partners... both DiBcom and Convergent Technologies seeming rather Windows friendly companies.

The fact is that unlike DMB, DVB-H selected Windows Media for audio (WM along with AAC, vs BSAC for DMB) as well as for video (WM9 along with MPEG4 vs MPEG4 only for DMB). So we are not talking only about Nokia, but about a Nokia - Microsoft duo. Of course, Microsoft should also play competitive technos****, but what a pair for mobile TV...

* Yet, Virgin Mobile are investigating mobile TV over DAB (1,000 users in South-West England thanks to BT Livetime, BT Wholesale and Digital One's network). They're also soft-launching W-CDMA in few cities. In both cases, VirginRadio happened to play the crash tester for the Virgin Group : an early adopter of DAB (first trials 10 years ago), VR had already been available on 3G for a couple of weeks ("3G radio" with Sydus).

** Shorts International (A.K.A. Britshorts Ltd, also an Orange partner)

*** How about China then ? They do use DVB-T but are considering their own Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) standard while testing all others, including DVB-T, ATSC and ISDB-T. Mobile ? Don't mention it yet ?

**** This time, Qualcomm looks in a difficult position : they spent $800 on MediaFLO which won't be delivered before next year and neither Microsoft nor Korea are on board. The FCC seems more attracted by the "TV-Fi" concept.

Flux your muscles, watch your wallet - music for a song ?

Viacom's MTV selected Japan and KDDI for their first subscription based music video service over 3G (Vids over 3G EVDO, then). I don't care if it raps, rocks or rolls but this rather sounds like classical music to my ears.
The other side of the East / West Sea, Korea's Daum are about to offer music for free to all their customers. Well, you can LISTEN to up to 3 songs a day within Musiccity's 400,000 song library, but the service usually costs W3,000 per month. All you have to do is being one of Daum's 35+ million subs. Obviously, the former leading portal seems allergic to MelOn, a key factor of success of SKT's Nate nowadays, along with Cyworld, the leader in homepages, a serious competitor to the Bank of Korea thanks to their quasi-currency loyalty program, and one of Musiccity's big customers. Because Musiccity is into "background music" and this kind of music seems likely to be heard far beyond its original mobile devices (elevators) : even if you can't podcast it, you can have people hear it wherever you post things (personal pages, blogs, e-mail ?). You don't even have to buy the latest 2.5 Gb-mp3-7-megapixel-4WD-phone to enjoy it*.
And what do the music majors think of this ? The Korea Music Copyright Association just gave their blessing, considering Daum already pays W125 / month / user.
Well. Once again, Korea's leading major is now a 60% SKT subsidiary.
A smarter combo ? Amp'd offers more than background music : back-uped content. I like the "safe haven" approach (for each download on your mobile phone - including mobisodes shot at Amp'd's brand new studios or your own content-, the US 3G EVDO MVNO will provide a simultaneous remote download), but I wonder if Amp'd can deliver before the big league players tune in, especially when they also envision ambitious multiplayer experiences with InfoSpace. Anyway : more hype announcements for Motorola and Kyocera, the suppliers supposed to release nice new handsets for Amp'd this fall. Remember lads : the word "fall" is zweideutig, and Moto have also been supposed to deliver ipod phones soon for a while... Verizon could hold the best spot for a takeover, being Amp'd's host through Verizon Wireless, but also a major US LLO.
Whatever the outcome, at the age of many-stop-storing and collaborative purchasing, at the age of Snocap and Mercora, you need a considerable reach by yourself and through your partners, but also more and more through not so loyal endusers.

Stephane

* You'd better invest on iRiver's latest player for your kid (ReingCom are now targeting the babies - I guess they'd better diversify beyond portable multimedia players). Anyway, any device will be more fun than Movida's : even in Puerto Rico you can't make people believe a Nokia 2270 will mobile-ize their life ("Moviliza tu vida" / "Get moving with Movida"). Talking about a revolution and an innovation... heard about Virgin Mobile's "disruptive" new service with BT Livetime ? TV over radio and an exciting EPG (Electronic Program Guide). That's DAB and SMS alerts... Radio Definitely Killed The Video Stars.