Television in Your Pocket: ABI Research Sees the Advent of TV in the Cellular Handset
Once digital cameras, FM radios, and MP3 players entered the mobile handset, there was only one major entertainment device missing: television. But according to ABI Research, soon you will be watching "The Apprentice" as you wait at the airport.
"Initially," says the firm's principal analyst of semiconductor research, Alan Varghese, "there was a lot of hesitation, especially from the cellular operators: they could see little value in broadcasting TV to the handset, since it did not raise their ARPU. They also felt that watching TV would drain batteries and prevent the user from making more revenue-generating voice and data calls."
Then operators began to get interested in streaming short television clips over their cellular networks, and in interactive TV, both of which generate traffic for them. And the cellphone and IC vendors, regardless of operator concerns, started to put cellphone television on their product line roadmap.
Currently NEC, Nokia, Samsung and Toshiba have phones with built-in tuners that can receive TV broadcasts. Texas Instruments recently announced that they're developing digital TV on a single chip."
"Will users really gravitate to watching TV on the tiny screen of a cellphone?" asks Varghese. "If the choice is between watching a full screen TV or TV in the handset, the decision will obviously be the former. But for those times when someone is waiting at a train station, airport or in a restaurant, TV in the handset is going to become commonplace."
ABI Research's study, "Wireless Semiconductors" discusses all the issues related to television in the handset. In addition, it examines the technology and the market for the other cellphone ICs such as the power amplifier, RF transceiver, baseband, applications processor, camera module and newer functions such as WiFi and GPS. Lastly, it also focuses on the deployment of EDGE, 3G cellular, and HSDPA worldwide.
Source: press release
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