Nokia's attitude to mobile TV 'ridiculous'

Nokia announced last year that it will support DVB-H exclusively

Nokia's decision to support the DVB-H mobile TV standard exclusively has been branded "ridiculous" by one of the top five UK mobile networks.

Nokia, which produces the majority of the world's smartphones, announced last year that it would support the DVB-H mobile broadcast standard rather than the DAB standard that will be introduced in the UK this summer.

"I cannot understand Nokia's position. It's ridiculous," a director of one of the top five mobile networks told vnunet.com on condition of anonymity.

"It's gambling everything on DVB-H. The only reason I can see for this is that Nokia manufactures DVB-H network infrastructure."

DVB-H has a clearer picture than DAB mobile broadcast signals and allows more channels to be broadcast simultaneously. But it will require the spectrum currently used by analogue televisions in the UK, which will not be available in London until 2012.

"Nokia is a single device manufacturer and there are a large number of others which are interested in DAB," said Emma Lloyd, managing director of BT Movio, which will launch the UK's DAB service.

"We hope that Nokia will see the benefits of this technology, and that the situation will change. If it does not there is enough interest from other manufacturers to provide handsets."

UK broadcaster ITV, which is preparing content specifically for mobile television, has said that it is standards agnostic and will support whichever is used.

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