UAE mobile TV plan out of focus

An ambitious mobile TV project has been put on hold because of the rapidly changing technology in telecommunications.

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Last Updated: May 11, 2011

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The UAE's largest media companies and telecoms operators agreed in 2009 to form a consortium to provide TV services over mobile networks.

The Emirates Mobile Television Corporation consortium comprised the telecoms companies Etisalat and du, and the TV operators Abu Dhabi Media (which also owns and publishes The National), Dubai Media Incorporated and MBC.

A subsidiary of Tecom Investment was also part of the group.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority agreed to grant the licence to the consortium to provide mobile TV broadcasting services for 10 years, with an acquisition fee of Dh17 million (US$4.6m). A royalty fee was to be paid on top of this.

But the consortium did not begin mobile TV broadcasts and its members now say the initiative has been put to the side.

Osman Sultan, the chief executive of du, said the project was on hold and the mobile TV format chosen by the consortium, called Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H), was out of date.

"What is putting this project on hold is the technology itself," Mr Sultan said. "The business model is a very good model. The partners decided to just wait a little bit to see what is the outcome of this technology, specifically with the progress of what is being done with the 3G."

Mr Osman said the project had not been a failure because money had not been invested.

"It's not a failure in the sense that when you are concerned that you make an investment and don't get the revenue, that would be the failure," he said.

Analysts agreed the mobile format chosen by the consortium was out of date.

"The technology became old," said Santino Saguto, a partner at the consultancy Value Partners. "DVB-H is not as fashionable as three years ago."

Mr Saguto said media companies and telecoms operators stood to gain from joint ventures, but at present, "everyone is going in his own way".

"It was a good opportunity that could be replicated today, in the world of IPTV [internet protocol TV], web TV, video on demand," he said.

"There's no reason why each player should have their own platform. It's just technology. I think they lost an opportunity.

"But something similar can be done in the UAE."