Three of the leading UK operators — Orange, O2 and Vodafone — are set to trial Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB) technology, which could be used for commercial mobile TV services. The pilot is set to begin in October and last for three months in central London and Slough, with the idea to test how mobile broadcast services can be deployed using shared network infrastructure.
IMB is a 3GPP standard that promises to enable “spectrally-efficient delivery of broadcast services” in both FDD and TDD spectrum bands, and can also link with traditional unicast or on-demand services delivered over 3G networks.
The three operators will use TDD (unpaired) spectrum to asses whether it’s possible to offer mobile TV without clogging up their networks, which as you know, are increasingly being used by smartphone users.
In addition to Orange, O2 and Vodafone – Ericsson and Streamezzo are also involved in the pilot. The hope is that the IMB technology could lead to the renewed interest in mobile TV services, which have so far fared poorly outside of Japan and South Korea…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]