Handset giants team up for TV to mobiles

Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Siemens and Sony Ericsson have formed a working group to speed up the introduction of television broadcasts to mobile phones.

The group will be working under the auspices of the Open Mobile Alliance, an industry group of hardware, software and communications vendors set up in 2002, to set standards for the new services.

"Content is king but mobility is queen," said Steffen Ring, of the chief technology office at Motorola PCS, in a statement. "We have come together to make this royal marriage happen."

The handset manufacturers are hoping that the new services will drive demand for more fully featured mobile devices in the future, with extended memory, larger screens and faster connections to take advantage of the new services.

"The ability to watch TV-like content on a mobile phone is a natural next step of the advanced mobile multimedia services which are increasingly popular with consumers, and Sony Ericsson will be part of driving this evolution," said Mats Lindoff, chief technology officer at Sony Ericsson, in a statement.

Mobile television services to the handset are already being started in Japan and South Korea and are expected in Europe by the end of 2005.