CELLPHONE firms are praying video-on-the-move will be the next big thing. In the hope of cashing in, many invested billions in bandwidth licences to develop the latest 3G phones. But they may have wasted their money because you can watch videos just as well on upgraded 2G phones 鈥� if last week鈥檚 demos in Las Vegas are anything to go by.
Five companies 鈥� Microsoft, NTL, Tandberg, Texas Instruments and RadioScape 鈥� showed how a standard 2G phone network will happily relay video to your mobile from digital radio transmitters. You wouldn鈥檛 need to use the new 3G network of 20,000 base stations set up in Britain, for instance.
The key is digital audio broadcasting technology invented for digital radio. From the outset, digital radio was designed to cope with receivers that were on the move. Because the DAB signal is spread over many narrow channels, each one only has to carry a slow stream of widely spaced bits. Any bits arriving in these spaces are recognised as interference and rejected. So you don鈥檛 get the 鈥済host鈥� reflections that create static on conventional analogue radio broadcasts.
Advertisement
The technology hinges on software written by British firm RadioScape. That software turns signal-processing chips from Texas Instruments into a miniature DAB receiver. These DAB chips are being built into new 2G cellphones.
It works in a disarmingly simple way. You 鈥渙rder鈥� a video with a standard cellphone call or text message at 9.6 kilobits per second, and receive it as higher-speed DAB data. Colour video is compressed in the MPEG-4 format, using Microsoft鈥檚 latest Windows Media 9 software. At the demos, the pictures were surprisingly clear, even though they were sent at 64 kilobits per second, the rate talk radio stations normally use for mono sound only. And higher rates would give even clearer, bigger pictures.
RadioScape expects 2G DAB services to start off in Taiwan, where a consortium is now getting a service ready. 鈥淲ith DAB delivery, start-up costs are exceedingly low. There is no 3G licence to buy and no infrastructure to build,鈥� says RadioScape engineer Nigel Oakley. British firm Hutchison鈥檚 have a 3G network based in Hong Kong, the first commercial 3G service outside Japan, and they are charging owners of their 拢400 handset at least 拢60 a month to download sports, news and classic comedy clips.
According to Phil Kendall, wireless specialist with industry analysts Strategy Analytics, 鈥淭here鈥檚 no escaping the beauty of the DAB idea, as an alternative to blowing billions on a 3G licence and network.鈥�