Regulators Work Together For Digital Solutions

Michael Hedges - April 3, 2006

Nine European media regulators are beginning an ambitious project to coordinate digital strategies. Working in four distinct geographic “sub-projects,” German, Swiss, Austrian, Italian authorities are meeting regularly to “build a new architecture of inter-working media services by inter-working infrastructures of broadcasting and telecommunications for the media needs of a mobile Information society,” explained Dr. Peter Kettner, DMB Project Manager with Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM), Germany.
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This BLM initiated digital media project carries the umbrella name MI FRIENDS, an acronym for Mobile, Interactive, Favorite TV, Radio, Information, Entertainment and New Digital Services. DAB is the reference point, which Kettner calls Digital Advanced Broadcasting. The technical platform in the design is Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB), the Korean designed successor to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). Samsung and other Korean mobile phone manufacturers displayed new DMB handsets at Medientag München in October. The four projects within MI FRIENDS will run for 24 months beginning January 2006.

“The goal is developing and testing new media technologies from an economic viewpoint, paying particular regard to social and cultural aspects with man as media consumer at its center,” said Kettner. Too, he expects that economic benefit to “conservatively” exceed €50 billion. German regulators, and BLM in particular, are under time pressure to organize the most beneficial digital services ahead of the 2006 Football World Cup to be held in Munich, German state Bavaria’s capital.

Just as mobile phone manufacturers have become the leading producers of digital cameras, they are quickly becoming the leading broadcast radio receiver maker. FM receiving chips are as often included in next generation mobile hand-sets as all the new digital platforms, not to forget cameras and PDA or, even, the telephone. Previous tests comparing DMB and DVB-H reception in automobiles suggest an advantage of DMB from 100 km/hour to 200 km/hour, excellent for driving the German autobahns.

The pilot project turns Regensburg, in eastern Bavaria, into a mobile multimedia model city for Germany and all of Europe. Selection was determined by the city’s size, demographic characteristics and availability of media outlets. Regensburg was also selected because Band III frequencies, requiring less transmitter power, are readily available. The test, itself, will involve 100 participants using new model mobile receivers.

The second pilot sub-project centers on the Football World Cup. For this, 1000 Munich participants will use mobile receivers for audio, video and new services but BLM’s Kettner pointed out that the focus will be on radio and interactivity.  All World Cup venues will be adequately covered with DMB transmissions. The German state Saarland also announced DMB pilot tests, though not likely to start before the Football World Cup.

At the end of September media regulators from BLM, German state Baden-Württemberg’s Ladesanstalt für Kommunikation (LfK), Switzerland’s Bundesamt für Kommunikation (BAKOM) and Austria’s KommAustria and Rundfunk & Telekom Regulierungs (RTR) met to move forward a different sub-project, number three, to coordinate Band III digital media in the common geography around Lake Constance (Bodensee). The three-country project – DRM Bodensee - is also intended to provide a framework for European cross-border regulation. About 30 DAB/DMB radio programs are currently offered in the region, a popular and important tourist destination for Germans, Swiss and Austrians. The fourth sub-project will bring DMB tests to the South Tyrol area of Austria and Italy.

In addition to the typical list of audio and visual offerings, the MI FRIENDS pilot emphasizes new services made possible by the DMB platform handset receivers. Time-shifting, allowing users to listen to audio material outside of actual broadcast schedules, has been shown in the UK, for example, to lead consumer interest. Enhanced memory capacity will also allow Podcast downloads, considered an attractive value-added service from radio broadcasters. The long debated interactivity ingredient will also be included, with the practical application giving users access to messages and, with football in mind, sports statistics as text backgrounds. A back-channel capacity, considered important to new revenue streams, will enable users to send text, audio and video contributions to selected channels. For the visually lusting, the new handset receivers will also offer 3D capacity.

These new services are the latest in the handset receiver competition brewing between Korean manufacturers, like Samsung, and Finland’s Nokia, which supports a totally different platform, DVB-H. Northern German states, led by Berlin-Brandenberg, are firmly in the DVB-H/Nokia camp, with southern Germany going the other direction. DVB-H is considered more attractive technically but frequencies for DMB are often acquired easier.

European regulators are uniting around the digital future, though differences in strategy are confusing to consumers, broadcasters and even regulators. Promotion of any specific technology risks disputes with the European Commission (EC). November 9th the EC Directorate General Competition ruled that the Berlin-Brandenberg Media Authority (MABB) violated state aid rules by financially supporting commercial broadcasters in digital switch-over. Underlying, and influencing, this digital initiative by multi-national media regulators is the all-important RRC’06 conference, which will determine frequency allocations world-wide.

Previously published in Radio World International, March 2006, in a slightly different form.

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Munich MI FRIENDS DMB Test Set To Go - April 23, 2006

The comprehensive digital media project MI FRIENDS will begin Munich broadcast tests by the end of May. Korean partners LG and SK Telekom will provide 400 test receivers. The idea, of course, is to plug mobile media into the football World Cup.

“The market future (for the technology),” said BLM (Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien - Bavarian State Council for Media) President Wolf-Dieter Ring in a press release, “will be information and communication tied to mobility.” The BLM initiated the MI FRIENDS project and serves as program facilitator.

Last November the MI FRIENDS project was endorsed by CELTIC, a telecom industry program formed to enable development of Eureka standard technology infrastructures. MI FRIENDS is an acronym for the German name: Mobiles Interaktives Fernsehen, Radio, Information, Entertainment und Neue Digitale Services (Mobile Interactive Television, Radio, Information, Entertainment and New Digital Services). CELTIC stands for Cooperation for European Sustained Leadership in Telecommunication.

MI FRIENDS involves four related projects geographically centered in Regensburg and Munich, Germany to implement DMB for the 2006 World Cup, the Bodensee (Lake Constance) region of Germany, Switzerland and Austria and the south Tyrol/Trans-Alp region of Austria and Italy for the 2007 tourist season. About 50 companies, public and private, from nine countries are participating.

The Regensburg audio and video tests have been operating for several weeks.