US
: Once digital cameras, FM radios, and MP3 players entered the mobile
handset, there was only one major entertainment device missing: television.
But according to ABI Research, soon you will be watching "The
Apprentice" as you wait at the airport.
"Initially,"
says the firm's principal analyst of semiconductor research, Alan
Varghese, "there was a lot of hesitation, especially from the
cellular operators: they could see little value in broadcasting TV
to the handset, since it did not raise their ARPU. They also felt
that watching TV would drain batteries and prevent the user from making
more revenue-generating voice and data calls."
Then operators
began to get interested in streaming short television clips over their
cellular networks, and in interactive TV, both of which generate traffic
for them. And the cellphone and IC vendors, regardless of operator
concerns, started to put cellphone television on their product line
roadmap.
Currently NEC,
Nokia, Samsung and Toshiba have phones with built-in tuners that can
receive TV broadcasts. Texas Instruments recently announced that they're
developing digital TV on a single chip."
"Will users
really gravitate to watching TV on the tiny screen of a cellphone"
asks Varghese? "If the choice is between watching a full screen
TV or TV in the handset, the decision will obviously be the former.
But for those times when someone is waiting at a train station, airport
or in a restaurant, TV in the handset is going to become commonplace."
ABI Research's
study, "Wireless Semiconductors" discusses all the issues
related to television in the handset. In addition, it examines the
technology and the market for the other cellphone ICs such as the
power amplifier, RF transceiver, baseband, applications processor,
camera module and newer functions such as WiFi and GPS. Lastly, it
also focuses on the deployment of EDGE, 3G cellular, and HSDPA worldwide.