Disappointing take-up of Swiss mobile TV

Take-up of the mobile TV service from Swisscom is not meeting expectations, according to Swisscom Broadcast chief Jean-Paul de Weck, speaking during the Biel Bienne Communication Days (Comdays). The main reason for the slow acceptance is the lack of choice of DVB-H capable handsets.

“Here we have a little problem with the manufacturers. We hope that next year it will be better,” said De Weck in a local newspaper, as quoted by Digital Fernsehen, “With the expansion of the supply of mobile phones and content in October, the DVB-H customer numbers should rise again.”

Up until the end of September, the Nokia N77 was the only handset available to receive the service, though now there are four different models. Swisscom currently has about 5,000 mobile TV users, though it expects to gain more subscribers with the wider choice of handsets.

NDS provides conditional access solution for commercial trial of OMA's BCAST SCP standard

NDS  announced that it is providing core conditional access security infrastructure for world's first commercial trial of Open Mobile Alliance or OMA's BCAST Smartcard Profile or SCP standard. The company specified that MediaCorp, MobileOne, SingTel, and StarHub lead new mobile TV trial.

The NDS solution is based on NDS Unified Headend architecture, which provides single point of rights management for all video broadcasts. The new platform supports multiple mobile broadcast profiles and multiple handsets simultaneously and cost-effectively, centralising content distribution from a single headend for consumption on multiple devices.

Viaccess, LG Electronics, Enensys, Expway and Sagem Orga Team for Broadcast TV Mobile Market Solution

Viaccess, a France Telecom company, announced a partnership with LG Electronics, Enensys, Expway and Sagem Orga to secure access to mobile broadcast TV based on the OMA BCAST SmartCard Profile Standard.

The initiative launched by the partners aims at providing customers and operators with a production ready end to end environment, including handset from LG Electronics.

Viaccess's Conditional Access System dedicated to OMA Bcast Smartcard profile standard provides security and renewability, and reduces SIM management costs for Mobile Operators. Teaming with Enensys, Expway, LG Electronics, and Sagem Orga, Viaccess said it has conducted early interoperability schemes and the partnership announced a deployable solution.

"Our partnership with LG Electronics, Enensys, Expway and Sagem Orga demonstrates our full interoperability with the Broadcast mobile TV market," said Francois Moreau de Saint Martin, Viaccess CEO. "We believe the best value we can propose to our clients is turning the best in class products into immediately deployable solutions, and minimise integration costs. That's why Viaccess is building an ecosystem with partners to ensure compatibility of our solutions with the complete chain of broadcast equipment and receivers."