Europe gives DVB-H the official nod for mobile TV

Good news for Nokia, not so great news for Qualcomm and MediaFLO: the European Commission has given the Nokia-backed DVB-H mobile TV standard the official thumbs up by adding it to the EU List of Standards. Now, member states “will be required to encourage the use of DVB-H”.

The Commission has also hinted that it won’t accept proprietary behavious from those involved in DVB-H, saying it wants to see ‘”transparent intellectual property rights regime, based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and allowing low price of devices” and a transparent patent pool.

It always looked like the Commission was going to give DVB-H the nod, so this week’s announcement isn’t exactly a surprise, but I suspect will still be provoking some glass-raising at Nokia HQ. However, there are still the questions around spectrum, devices and consumer take-up for that matter to be solved before DVB-H actually gets into people’s pockets so don’t hold your breath for broadcast mobile TV any time soon.