New DTV Chip to Deliver Broadcast Viewing to Mobile Phones
DALLAS – Texas Instruments this week announced development of the wireless industry's first digital TV on a single chip for cell phones, which will capture broadcast signals and allow cell phone users to watch live broadcasts ranging from their favorite reality TV shows to major sporting events and breaking news. Code-named "Hollywood," the chip will receive live digital TV broadcasts using new television infrastructure that is being developed for cell phones, doing for cell phones what HDTV did for home TVs.
"TI's new 'Hollywood' digital TV chip will combine the two biggest consumer electronics inventions of our time: the television and the cell phone," said Gilles Delfassy, TI Senior Vice President and general manager for the company’s Wireless Terminals Business Unit. "One by one, the industry's most exciting consumer electronics are being integrated into wireless handsets, allowing consumers to get their news and entertainment whenever and wherever they want. With this new chip on the cell phone, users will enjoy digital, high-quality TV in real-time."
The "Hollywood" digital TV chip will support newly established and open digital TV broadcast standards for the wireless industry. While no single standard will be used worldwide, Delfassy said TI believes the most prevalent standards will be those that are open and non-proprietary, including Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H), which was developed for Europe and is expected to extend to North America, and the Japanese specification, Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial (ISDB-T). "Hollywood" will support DVB-H and ISDB-T.
Dedicated wireless networks supporting these standards will feature high-quality live broadcast TV (24-30 frames per second) paired with full audio to offer a more robust mobile viewing experience versus the one- to 15-frames-per-second streaming capability offered via cellular. These networks also could support services once reserved for the living room and bring them to the cell phone, including pay-per-view programming, interactive television, and menu/guide systems.
Leveraging TI's revolutionary digital RF processor (DRP) technology, TI is collapsing the traditional three-chip solution, which includes a tuner, OFDM demodulator and channel decoder processor, into the industry's first highly integrated single chip for digital TV phones. "Hollywood" is designed to interface with TI's widely adopted OMAP processor technology, which handles the multimedia processing of TV content, to provide a complete TV receiver system for wireless handsets. "Hollywood" will use TI's advanced 90-nanometer process technology to allow for maximum power efficiency, smaller board area and lower overall system costs.
TI expects to provide samples of the "Hollywood" chip to customers in 2006. TI's "Hollywood" offering also will include all needed software for television signal processing. The associated "Hollywood" plus OMAP processor-based development platform will allow handset manufacturers to create customized user interfaces. This is expected to enable manufacturers to launch products in conjunction with the first mobile digital TV infrastructure mass deployments in 2007. Field trials are currently underway in several regions, including the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
For more information about mobile digital TV market trends and video demonstrations, visit www.ti.com/wireless.
Survey: Consumers Increasingly Giving Up Fixed-Line Phones
ESPOO, Finland – Global research by MORI, conducted for Nokia, has identified a strong trend for consumers to move from their fixed line phones to use their mobile handsets for all or most of their voice calls. Fixed-to-Mobile Substitution (FMS) is occurring across the four major markets surveyed – Great Britain, USA, Germany, and South Korea – with more than 45 million consumers estimated to now make all their voice calls from their mobile phone in these markets alone.
Among the first global surveys of FMS as a consumer trend, the research also suggests mobile could challenge fixed line connections for data access in the home, too. On average, those who claim they are certain or very likely to adopt a wireless service for data expect this to happen in one to two years. Interest is greatest among the young and those who already have broadband Internet access at home.
The research confirms consumer FMS is an ongoing evolution. The landline remains the connection of choice for longer calls from the home, with the exception of shorter calls to friends and to other mobile phones, although differences do emerge by market.
The rational motivations for maintaining a landline subscription focus on price perceptions: For example 69 percent of respondents in Britain (more than in any other country) considered cost to be the key reason for choosing fixed calls ahead of mobile calls. But the need for a landline for data and greater perceived reliability of the landline phone are important criteria in the minds of U.S. and German consumers.
Emotional reasons to keep a landline phone exert a surprisingly strong force on consumers. These center on the association of the landline phone with the home and the "coziness" of the call experience. The research reveals that in order to encourage greater call substitution at home, the mobile phone needs to be strongly associated with value for money, good sound quality, and reliable reception.
Regardless of some reservations, there exists a view among respondents that the future will inevitably be wireless. The perception is that wireless technology will improve, quality and reliability issues will become less important, and data will be available through a wireless network for home Internet users. For these reasons, the perceived value of the landline subscription is decreasing.
A perception of a higher price differential between mobile and landline phones also needs to be addressed by carriers in all markets. However, in many instances respondents were unaware of the actual price differential between their landline and mobile phones. Several anticipated that, on comparing the total cost of their mobile subscription with the overall cost of their landline subscription, the price differential would be minimal and might actually favor the mobile.
A significant number of consumers, in particular in South Korea, consider they would not take out a landline subscription if they moved to a new residence. In fact, among the South Korean sample, 65 percent of the respondents already make all or most of their voice calls from a mobile phone.
Within each market, however, there are demographic differences that should be considered when developing FMS marketing campaigns. It seems women are more likely to use landlines for the majority of their calls. Two groups can be identified: those who predominantly use landlines rather than mobiles were more likely to be women aged 35 and older and home owners; and those who use landlines exclusively were more likely to be women aged 50-plus.
The most fertile market for FMS is the young professional group, who use their mobile phones for most of their voice calls. They are more likely to be male, have middle to high incomes, and make a large volume of voice calls.
Big Changes in Store for WiMax Market in 2005
NEW YORK – First-generation broadband wireless equipment based on the emerging WiMax technology standard will start shipping commercially in 2005, but many smaller vendors may not survive long enough to reap the rewards of WiMax's arrival, according to a new study released by Heavy Reading, the market research division of Light Reading Inc.
The report, WiMax Reality Check, analyzes the current state of technology and market development for this latest incarnation of broadband wireless technology. The report is based on information collected from and interviews conducted with more than 100 technology suppliers, service providers, and investors with a direct interest in the WiMax market.
Based on current schedules for interoperability testing conducted by the WiMax Forum trade group, the first commercial versions of WiMax products should be available by mid-2005, with market leader Intel Corp. leading the rollout charge, according to Heavy Reading. The first WiMax products will focus on fixed broadband applications, with products aimed at portable and mobile networking appearing in 2006 or later.
Heavy Reading expects WiMax to be a significant force in the emerging fixed/mobile network convergence sector later this decade, but the report concludes that the combination of a relatively long lead time for technology and market development, an overcrowded supplier market, and significant early price pressures will lead to a high attrition rate among WiMax components and systems vendors.
Other key findings of the report include:
WiMax will debut as a way to deliver fixed services before expanding into portable and finally mobile services. Initial uses of WiMax will be focused on backhaul connection of network access points to wireline infrastructure. The most obvious use of WiMax in this context is for connecting 802.11 "hotspots" to wired networks, but WiMax will also be deployed for backhaul connections of DSL-type services offered by competitive local exchange carriers looking to bypass incumbent-owned wireline networks.
Whenever it arrives, WiMax will be a critical network technology force for a long time. Backers have learned from the mistakes of earlier broadband wireless efforts, and they've taken important steps toward avoiding such problems as interoperability and business-case-annihilating overhead. Second, WiMax promises a better-performing, less-expensive alternative to many technologies that already serve its target applications. Finally, although competition will be fierce on the equipment side, it will quickly drive down costs for users and service providers, in turn improving the chances that WiMax will be much more than a niche play.
For competing technologies, WiMax will be more friend than foe, at least initially. WiMax will be a viable option for applications such as 802.11 "hotspot" backhaul and for extending broadband to areas that can't be served by wireline DSL infrastructure. But toward the end of this decade, as WiMax's footprint grows and its costs drop even further, it could begin to displace cellular and 802.11. And in areas where the copper infrastructure is still in the midst of being upgraded for DSL, WiMax could compete because both technologies will be in the early stages of their fixed-cost amortization curves.
Equipment pricing is still in flux, but it's already clear that pricing pressure will be significant at the market's start and will only increase. Estimates for WiMax base stations vary significantly, from $10,000 for a bare- bones model to $150,000 for full-feature units, and some vendors say the top- end estimates have already fallen by half. On the customer premises equipment side, the consensus is that the initial crop of devices will be in the $250 range and quickly fall to $50 in subsequent generations. Pricing pressure will winnow the field of WiMax vendors, particularly those already on shaky financial ground.
Snipnsend Ringtones Launches Mobile Data Service
PALO ALTO, Calif. – SLS Technology Inc. announced this week the implementation of its flagship Snipnsend application, a patent-pending software plug-in that allows Internet users to snip a segment of a real music song from a CD in their web browser and then send it to their mobile phone. The company hopes the application will be its ticket to capture a portion of the ringtone market that is reported to have been worth $3 billion in sales last year.
In simple 1-2-3 fashion, anyone from eight to 80 can snip a segment from a favorite CD and send it to their phone and use it as a ringtone. There is no complicated software to learn. Everything is accomplished through a flash-type Web browser plug-in that connects the Internet to mobile users.
Snipnsend employs an unusual plug-in license architecture wrapped around an application that can be simply and inexpensively imbedded in a variety of media and Websites and is adaptable to joint venture programming. "Snipnsend enhances other products with its plug-in such as enhanced CDs," said SLS Technology Inc. founder and president Michael Sharp, "thereby creating new revenue streams."
Sharp said Snipnsend is in negotiation with record labels, music distributors, and software companies that are intrigued about the opportunities the Snipnsend application creates with enhanced CDs. The company currently is working with Sound Choice, a North Carolina-based record label and karaoke company, which expects to ship three million CDs this year.
Zeosoft Showcases Personal Mobile Data Apps
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Zeosoft Technology Group Inc., a pioneer of mobile infrastructure software and application development technologies, announced this week it will showcase Mobile AppBuilder - Personal Edition, and unveil two new product concepts for the cellular data market at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show in San Francisco, October 25-27. Mobile AppBuilder allows business users to easily create and deploy their own secure P2E enterprise class applications in minutes, without incurring expenses for customized solutions. The easy-to-use application generator quickly produces applications that communicate directly with enterprise or personal databases without writing a single line of code.
Mobile AppBuilder - Personal Edition is designed for those who want to access private data at their home or office securely from their smart phone, PDA, or wireless laptop. Wireless applications can be created in minutes with Mobile AppBuilder and can be used by anyone interested in viewing and searching databases of virtually any kind of data. Collectors can view and track their inventory, including pictures of items; business users can search and view business results or track inventory and purchasing information; professionals can have access to their sensitive data and contact information without carrying it with them. Personal or sensitive data stays secure in the database back at the office or home, not on the device, keeping the data secure and not exposed to loss, theft, or the unexpected dead battery.
"We are pleased to be at CTIA showcasing Mobile AppBuilder, which is targeted for retail distribution for the Holidays," said Mike Huestis, president and CTO of Zeosoft Technology Group. "At the show we will be creating and giving away personalized applications on the spot, so people can see first-hand how quickly and easily they can generate their own applications for wireless and cellular data devices."
Zeosoft Technology Group also will demonstrate a few of its other mobility solutions during CTIA Wireless, including On Demand Mobile Conferencing and FilePeer, a wireless P2P file browser designed for the mobile professional market.
