Further evidence supporting the case that cellular operators may have overspent on networks which could rapidly become obsolete.
Video-on-the-go has long been a dream of cell-phone companies worldwide. Carriers have spent the better part of a decade building networks capable of carrying fast video streams, partly in hopes of boosting profits by hooking customers on clips of pop singers and soccer goals. But just as those networks are starting to work well enough that consumers might actually want to tune in, new technologies are emerging that could steer eyeballs away from the services....
Digital Multimedia Broadcasting -- or DMB for short -- will soon go live in South Korea. ... On Mar. 28 ... Mobile couch potatoes will be able to watch everything from baseball games and soap operas to the evening news -- all for free -- on cellular handsets equipped with special chips, which Korean giants Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. have started producing. Once the rollout is underway, the Korean researchers who developed the technology hope to persuade Europe to adopt it before next year's World Cup soccer competition in Germany.
Interesting article, and it explains that there are other competing standards. But no matter which one wins, it just seems like more bad news for owners of cellular networks. It has always seemed a bit silly and low tech how we've required small cell towers to be set up along every highway. Its similar to the idea of having tons of WiFi hotspots blanketing a city. Call it gut instinct, but the money is probably better spent looking further into how we can have a single hub blanket the entire city instead. Upgrades would be far easier.
me
Posted by: iced fire | March 18, 2007 at 05:51 PM