Research Firm Telephia reports that 3.6 per cent of U.S. cellphone customers subscribed to some form of mobile video service in 2006. (Oscar Sosa/AP)

The author is a Canadian freelance writer specializing in consumer technology.

Watching TV on your cellphone is hailed by some as the next big thing in portable media, but others call it an unwelcome solution to a non-existent problem.

One thing is for sure though: the cellphone carriers are betting big that you'll pay to tune-in, and they have some numbers to back it up.

A Modeo cellphone equipped with a tv screen. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

Before we get into the ins and outs of mobile TV for Canadians, let's take a quick look at the technology that makes it happen. There are generally two ways of delivering full-blown TV programming to a cellphone: one-way and two-way.

The one-way method is much like the basic television service we have today. Channels are being broadcast en masse and you use your phone much like a portable TV to tune into a channel. The Europeans have largely agreed to the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) standard for this form of distributing television to handsets, and North America is at the early testing phases with the technology.

DVB-H is basically a less power-hungry version of terrestrial broadcast system used in much of Europe. The wireless bandwidth requirements for this technology are considerably less than sending the information over existing cellphone networks as data files, making it a much more cost-effective way to deliver multiple video channels to large numbers of viewers.

Of course, this cost effectiveness is dependent upon having the DVB-H system set up in an area, and having an audience with access to compatible phones. This is not the case here, so in Canada right now we're limited to systems based on the existing cellphone networks. Which brings us to the two-way method of getting TV onto cellphones.

The carriers here use the two-way method to deliver mobile TV content. When you launch the TV-watching program, your phone connects with the service via the internet and gets the list of current and upcoming shows. Once you make your selection, the service starts sending the video stream from that channel to your phone.

In terms of mobile TV content, the options in Canada are really just the same MobiTV system being priced and bundled differently by Rogers, Bell and Telus. MobiTV is a U.S.-based service that streams about 25 channels of TV programming to cellphone carriers all over the world. For anywhere from $10 to $20 a month, depending on the often complex mishmash of options you are already subscribe to, your phone package will include access to the service.

This low price point is interesting given the heavy data usage involved in sending video over a cellular network, particularly in light of the much higher fees charged for the same quantity of data when used for web surfing or e-mail. Charging the same low rates for general data downloads would of course make the carriers more vulnerable to competing video content on-line, the sources of which they do not control.

If you don't want to sign up for a MobiTV type of service, an option is to pick up a device called a Slingbox for about $150. A Slingbox connects to your home TV signal (satellite or cable) and your home broadband connection, and allows you to rebroadcast your home TV signal over the internet to a cellphone or computer anywhere in the world. That said, the data charges for doing this on a cellphone in Canada would be much higher than the MobiTV option being offered by the wireless carriers.

The experience

So what does cell phone TV look like?

When you turn on a system like MobiTV, you see a channel guide not unlike the one you have at home for digital cable or satellite. There is a little logo for each channel and the listings for current and upcoming shows. Make your selection and your phone sends a request to the service provider, which then streams that channel back to your phone.

When you are relatively stationary and in a good coverage area, the 1.5 inch picture on a cellphone screen is actually quite watchable, since you're only holding it within arm's length while viewing. It's not the full-on smooth television you have at home, but it is pretty comparable to today's webcam experience.

A common problem is that frames in the video do tend to drop off when the action is fast, making some videos look a little like fast stop-animation. Text on the screen, like the kind you see running at the bottom of news broadcasts, was created for larger screens and hence can be very hard to read on a typical phone. General programming is, however, highly watchable for short periods.

I've tried both the Telus and Rogers services, which travel along different technologies (Rogers has a considerably faster speed available on its wireless network in some urban centres), but the overall experience in my area was much the same from both carriers. Once I picked a show, there would be a delay between five and 15 seconds before the video would start playing, a delay that repeated each time I changed channels.

As such, the absent-minded channel flipping so many of us do at home may be less than pleasant on a cellphone. For those of you who subscribe to satellite services, think about how annoying the delay was when you first started changing channels as compared to the seemingly instant channel transitions of basic cable.

In terms of selection, The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decided in 2006 that cellphone TV wasn't subject to Canadian content rules. Much of what you'll find on phones is from the major American networks, although there are some Canadian choices on the roster.

The audience

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) stated in 2007 that the cellphone services market is forecast to grow by 30 per cent over the next three to four years. A big part of that growth is expected to be in data services such as e-mail, web browsing and multimedia, which according to CWTA numbers, make up about 10 per cent of the average users current phone bill.

Add that to studies like that of ABI Research, which in 2006 predicted an almost tenfold increase in worldwide mobile TV subscribers in roughly the same period, and you start to see why the carriers are excited.

Research Firm Telephia reports that only 3.6 per cent of U.S. cellphone customers subscribed to some form of mobile video service in 2006. That may not sound like much, but when you consider that this represents 198 per cent growth over the previous year, you start to understand why the carriers are investing here.

Who uses mobile TV services now?

Telephia's report on mobile TV usage in the United States said that seven out of 10 users were found to be men and 50 per cent of all users fell into the 25 to 36 age bracket.

Although much of the TV watching occurred during the morning and evening commute, as one might expect, a surprising 22 per cent happened at home, where some used the service to watch shows they couldn't get on their household TV feed or to watch something other than what the rest of household was currently tuned in to.

Still, mobile TV on a cellphone is really a way to grab small chunks of content on the go, not a replacement for the home TV experience. In the age of progressively bigger home screens, one may not foresee too many people spending hours watching TV on a wristwatch-sized display, but cellphone companies see potential in those little slices of idle time.

This is where I can see practical uses for mobile TV. When waiting for your ride or killing time at the car repair shop, being able to watch the news or a bit of comedy is a nice option to have. And for those of us with daily passenger commutes, the access to TV may be a welcome distraction.

However, I would expect that passing through areas with various levels of cellphone reception strength in a moving vehicle will have the same corresponding impact on video quality as it does on my voice calls. So it's not going to be a great experience for people trying to watch long episodes of their favourite shows — at least not until the networks are faster and coverage is more consistent.

Canadian outlook

Will mobile TV take off in Canada?

My answer is yes, but if one of the biggest factors driving it is the idle time spent in public transit, I expect that the adoption process will be slower here.

In many European and Asian countries where mobile TV is popular, higher population density, city layouts designed before the popular use of cars, and different economic factors such as higher fuel costs have made public transit a much more frequent choice than it is here. To illustrate, the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) lumped Canada and the U.S. together at 14 per cent of trips being done by foot, bicycle or public transit. Compare that to 50 per cent for Western Europe, 72 per cent for Central and Eastern Europe and 63 per cent for affluent Asian cities.

That said, we are a country that is sending almost double the number of text messages as compared to last year (nearly seven billion according to the CWTA), and it wasn't so long ago that many people thought texting would never really take off. As the networks and service offerings evolve, mobile TV just might fill a niche you never knew you had in your daily life.

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