Samsung are about to announce a brand new mobile TV chipset at CES 2007 that could completely revolutionize the mobile TV market by offering free mobile TV that's completely indpendent from the network operators.

We already have a variety of mobile TV standards in place, which either use the existing mobile network to stream the TV data to the handset, or broadcast technology, which uses similar technology to the way in which terrestrial TV is broadcast.

However, both require the operators to upgrade their networks to support the standards (and ensure that a phone designed for one standard, say DVB-H, can't work with a different standard, such as MediaFLO). Obviously this is an expensive outlay for the operators, but it also enables them to charge a premium for the benefit of mobile TV.

New Samsung mobile TV chipset

However, Samsung will shortly announce a new chipset that enables a mobile phone to pick up standard terrestrial TV without the need for a mobile network. All it needs is for broadcasters to transmit a separate signal over their existing TV and radio towers, and any mobile phone that uses this chipset can pick up free TV, and even change channels at will.

Who wins with Samsung's new chipset...

For the user, the benefits are obvious: you can watch whatever terrestrial TV you currently watch at home without having to pay for a special mobile TV package from your network operator that might not even offer the programmes you want to watch.

For the broadcaster, the benefits are also clear: more ad revenue, just by adding a different signal to their existing broadcasts. Oh, and no mobile network operator acting as the middlemen and taking their cut, either.

...and who loses? Ah yes, the network operators

For the network operators, however, most of whom have spent a fortune updating their network to support mobile TV (such as Verizon in the US, which just announced its new VCAST mobile TV service), this could be a disaster. Samsung's chipset cuts them out of the mobile TV service entirely, meaning they lose a potentially valuable new revenue source, and have shiny new expensive equipment in their networks that will largely sit around gathering dust.

With the different mobile TV standards already fighting it out for the top position, and network operators and content makers battling it out as to who can offer the best mobile TV content (and how much of the profits each should get), we now have yet another option that could completely upset the marketplace.

If Samsung can get enough handset manufacturers to adopt this chipset (not to mention broadcasters supporting the new service), it could be game over for the existing mobile TV standards before they've even started. I can hear the sound of sobbing network operators even as I type!

More details during the week when Samsung formally announce this new chipset at CES 2007.

[Source: ArsTechnica]