VENKAT ESWARA and ED SAWMA outline the potentialities and challenges for driving adoption of Mobile TV in India...

Venkat Eswara is the Senior Marketing Manager in the Global Marketing Organization of Motorola's Networks and Enterprise Business. In his present position, Eswara is responsible for developing and driving the Applications Services marketing plan and deliverables for Motorola Network and Enterprise business.

He is also responsible for developing and driving marketing strategy with the Joint Ventures. Eswara has been in the telecommunications industry for more than eleven years and worked in the areas of marketing and product development areas. Prior to Motorola, Eswara had over five years of experience in consulting for the electrical industry. Eswara has a Bachelor's degree in engineering from Osmania University, India, a Master's degree in engineering from University of Massachusetts, and a Master's in management degree from Northwestern University..

Ed Sawma is an Applications Product Marketing Manager for Motorola Services. Sawma joined Motorola in 2005; prior to this he worked for Deloitte Consulting as an IT consultant in areas including IT strategy, information security, wireless technology, and custom system integration. He has also worked as a manufacturing systems integrity engineer for 3Com Corporation in their carrier technology group.

Sawma has an MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Chicago. At Kellogg, he focused on innovation management and created a strategy that successfully accelerated the growth of a small software company in medical information systems. He also has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Mobile operators, broadcasters and content providers are looking to use and adopt mobile TV as a vehicle to potentialize more revenues and mobilize their brands. Most of these players expect mobile TV to differentiate themselves by offering premium content to end users. Undoubtedly, the mobile device has the potential to be a 4th major screen for video content, after the cinema, television and PC. Successful deployment will utilize recent advancements in terrestrial TV. Mobile TV must have the look and feel of digital home TV that end users already know and love, with a similar Electronic Service Guide (ESG), on-demand programming, and TV interaction with advertising and personalized content. There are a wide variety of technology choices for delivering mobile TV, from unicast or broadcast over cellular to overlay dedicated mobile TV broadcast networks such as Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H), MediaFLO. and Digital Media Broadcast (DMB). To plan for a future-proof network with a mix of standards for conditional access, video encoding, and broadcast, service providers should choose a system integrator that uses best of breed components. The challenge for service providers is to navigate ecosystem issues to create the most value for end-users and allow all stakeholders to monetize that value with a sustainable business model. Advertising will play a key role in creating sustainable business models in mobile TV, as it has in terrestrial TV. This paper examines mobile TV adoption to date, and applies that analysis to the potential for mobile TV in India, a market where the recent adoption of wireless technology and Internet has been significant.

Market Drivers Over the next decade, mobile TV has the potential to become the next major medium for video, with many people in the world regularly watching live TV on their mobile handsets. It has the potential to ramp up the entire experience of conventional TV to a new level with interactive and personalized capabilities.

The following key drivers depict why mobile TV is set for widespread adoption:

• TV is highly popular, and shown to be a form of entertainment enjoyed in a wide variety of settings. It is a reasonable extension for a person to watch TV on their mobile handset if the experience is acceptable and similar to the home experience. In a broadcast mobile TV trial conducted by O2 in Oxford, UK, 83% of participants said they were satisfied with the service. Most trials have confirmed customer satisfaction at similar levels for broadcast mobile TV.
• Mobile data networks enabling 3G or WiMAX technologies are finally reaching broadband speeds. This will allow for an interactive channel during the TV broadcast, something to which home TV consumers are becoming more accustomed.
• Device technology is allowing for high resolution screens that use low battery power. Due to the way the human eye perceives distance, the experience of watching a 2.5 inch high resolution screen from within 1meter is almost an equivalent experience to watching an averaged sized TV from across a living room.
• Consumers would like to get connected with their favorite content, especially during idle time on their daily commute, at the airport or in the coffee shop. Now this idle time can be transformed into an entertaining experience as they watch their favorite sports excerpts or highlights of their favorite movie.

These drivers can be correlated to the trends experienced with Internet adoption. Online, consumers are embracing less static, more vibrant and interactive forms of entertainment. Consumers are creating content or sharing their ideas, aspirations and experiences in communities. Subscribers are becoming used to being more actively involved with their entertainment. Examples include voting for their pop idol or sharing a video clip of their favorite sports player with friends. It is increasingly clear that innovative interactive applications will be an important part of a mature mobile TV offering.

Opportunities to drive adoption
Japan and South Korea are early adopters of broadcast mobile TV. South Korea provides a good case study showing the impact of two specific business models. In both business models, the mobile operator is actually not tightly linked to the value chain.

One service is offered by the major TV networks for free, as long as a user owns a compatible handset. The TV networks are trying to support the service entirely with advertising revenue. The free service has more than 1 million subscribers; however the revenue from advertising alone has not yet supported the investment. A second mobile TV service is being offered by a startup company, TU Media, which is partly owned by SK Telecom. TU Media is offering a subscription-only service that is similarly independent of the mobile operator. TU Media's user uptake has been far slower than the free service; however they are nearing 1 million subscribers and they are profitable. They expect to achieve $1 billion in revenue by 2010 . The situation in South Korea demonstrates that a sustainable business model for a service that targets mainstream users should probably use a combination of paid channels and advertising supported channels. This mix will vary by region and country based on how that specific population is accustomed to consuming TV. It will be more difficult to charge for TV if the population is not accustomed to paying for TV. Overall, the situation in South Korea shows that it is possible to achieve high uptake of mobile TV services. It also shows that the most successful services will make use of a wholesale / retail partnership with a hybrid service that uses a combination of advertising and pay TV.

Impact for India
In India, there is high demand for Bollywood shows, sports and political news. The mobile device is likely a good medium to satisfy some of this demand. Service providers and content providers can look at business models for mobile TV that have a combination of fee-based and non-fee based programming to drive revenue both from advertisers and end-users. In India, the mainstream consumer market is very accustomed to advertisements. Premium content can be offered to the high -end of the market that has the disposable income to pay for that content. A small number of free channels could be offered to lure the mainstream consumer, and drive adoption of handsets that support broadcast mobile TV. Once the handsets are more widespread, marketing tactics could be used to lure consumers to more paid content.

The role of personalization and interactivity
Service providers can also look at personalization and interactive capabilities to drive mobile TV adoption and revenues. Not only can they deliver content to the mobile device, they can also make it more compelling and convenient based on the lifestyle of the targeted user segment. Service providers can look at the capabilities of 3G and WiMAX networks to leverage capabilities such as presence, location, and messaging. These capabilities are not economically viable over broadcast networks alone. In addition to TV-interaction 35 DRIVING ADOPTION FOR MOBILE TV IN INDIA 34 TIMES GLOBAL JOURNAL applications, mobile network service providers can also provide convenient wireless shopping portals, to sell merchandise related to content. Some of the services that can be offered to consumers include:

• Local broadcast services: In a sports or concert stadium, immediate clips of the action can be relayed to mobile devices. This service can be provided over a DVB-H or similar broadcast network with interactivity supported by the mobile network. Possible TV-interaction applications include voting for a favorite star, such as the most valuable player of the sports match, or downloading a favorite music track.
• Personalization: Personalization can tailor mobile services to individuals to maximize convenience and relevance. This makes the service more compelling, increasing stickiness and enabling service providers to offer premium services. Electronic Service Guides (ESG) are being developed that will recommend content to subscribers based on their viewing history and preferences. The ESG will also allow the subscriber to instruct the mobile device to send a message to the home PC, personal video recorder or set-top-box to record a program for them. This can be watched later at home or streamed to the handset for viewing at a more convenient time.

In Passing
Indian consumers have latched on to the mobile device as a key part of their daily lives. In many of India's diverse regions, the mobile device is the primary form of communication, and is at the center of the consumer's life. For many in India with an on-the-go lifestyle, the mobile device could potentially become a primary way to view TV and video content. It will be important for service providers in India to find an appropriate mix of advertisingbased and paid content. This will attract mainstream consumers, but allow service providers to monetize premium content for high-end market segments.

Interactive services will further allow service providers to gain from the mobile TV platform. An integrated mobile entertainment experience, with TV-interaction applications and other merchandising will allow for both maximum revenue for the ecosystem and the most engaging user experience.To achieve an integrated mobile entertainment experience, service providers need to look at using a consistent Service Layer platform or Service Delivery Platform (SDP). An SDP would allow for the most efficient way of managing multiple services and applications that are interconnected and that access the same underlying network components without compromising security and network control concerns.

Overall, mobile TV is set to take off in a big way in India, and around the world. The key will be for service providers to work out a sustainable business model that makes the most sense given the unique environment of each country and region.

KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR CREATING A COMPELLING MOBILE TV EXPERIENCE WITH PERSONALIZED AND INTERACTIVE SERVICES:

INTEGRATION WITH CONTENT DELIVERY SYSTEMS: Standard connections that ensure it is easy to work with different content providers to support downloadable and streaming services. Open application interfaces allow service providers to easily develop information for Electronic.

INTEGRATION WITH SERVICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS: Central control to manage service access and deployment. Seamless hooks into existing assets such as charging, messaging and voice control systems.

INTEGRATION WITH DRM SYSTEMS: Support for open standards including OMA and OSF security specifications. Interaction with all key management systems that issue rights for purchased content. DRM safeguards ensure that a content provider's policies and rights are enforced during transmission and usage.

RAPID SERVICE DEPLOYMENT: Services such as voting, opinion polling and chat applications should be easily and quickly deployable. For example, it should be simple to link a voting application to a reality TV show and enable subscribers to participate in chat rooms based on their preferences. The system should also interface with external applications like movie ticketing, advertising and shopping channels to provide merchandising capabilities.