Nokia to pilot mobile TV in India

HELSINKI, Dec 1 (Reuters) The world's top cellphone maker Nokia has said that it would arrange in 2007 a mobile television broadcasting trial in India, the world's fastest growing major mobile market, with Doordarshan.

The test will use Nokia's open standards based digital video broadcast handheld technology (DVB-H).

Cellphone makers are keen to tap the potentially lucrative market in phones that receive television broadcasts.

Finnish Nokia and many other European vendors favour a homegrown DVB-H for watching television broadcasts on cellphones globally, but there are also rival technologies such as DMB and MediaFlo available.

''During this pilot, Doordarshan will test the reception quality of the broadcast coverage, and explore the myriad of options of supporting different service schemes, such as advertising and interactive services,'' Nokia said yesterday.

Mobile operators hope that additional income from mobile TV services, which may generate another 5 to 10 euros of revenues a month from each user, would compensate for declining revenues from voice telephony due to fierce competition and new regulation.

REUTERS CS