BRUSSELS, Belgium — The European Commission is supporting a standard based on Nokia Corp. technology for television broadcasting to cell phones in Europe, according to a draft document obtained by Dow Jones Newswires.
The commission, the European Union's regulatory arm, said the DVB-H standard is the "strongest contender."
Two other standards, T-DMB, which is used in South Korea, and MediaFlo, a technology pioneered by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., are less prevalent, according to the commission, which noted that using a single standard is necessary to avoid "market fragmentation."
The commission said it plans to add DVB-H to the list of standards published in its official journal, meaning EU member countries will be required to encourage the use of DVB-H.
The commission is expected to publish its plans in mid-July.
Naming a single standard is a controversial approach more common to Europe than the United States. In the early 1990s, EU regulators selected the GSM standard for mobile phones, making the devices compatible across the bloc. This helped the cell-phone industry develop much more rapidly in Europe than in the United States, which has several competing standards.
Companies that have invested in mobile television technology have pushed the EU to keep its options open for the potentially lucrative market. The commission estimates mobile television will generate global sales of between 4 billion euros and 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion and $6.7 billion) by 2009.
A spokesman for Qualcomm couldn't be reached for comment.
South Korea has lobbied the commission to consider the T-DMB standard. Patent holders for this technology include Samsung Corp., the British Broadcasting Corp. and British and German universities.
Spokesmen for Korea-based Samsung and the BBC couldn't be reached for comment.
The commission noted that Nokia's DVB-H standard is "used in most countries," while the T-DMB standard is less common. Qualcomm's technology was described as a "proprietary solution" that is at the start of the testing stage.
A Nokia spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.
The commission's telecommunications regulator, Viviane Reding, earlier in March warned industry players to select a single standard or have one selected for them.
"I know that competition among different standards can, for some time, be a good way to let the market identify the best solution. But, we have been waiting for too long. The opportunities are slipping away. It is time to break the deadlock," she told an industry conference.
Reding added that she favors DVB-H since it is "based on European technology with the support of funds." The EU contributed about $54 million to developing the DVB-H standard.
[from Associated Press]