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Over Four Million North Americans Will Subscribe to Mobile Broadcast Services in 2007, says ABI Research
September 21, 2006 09:47 AM Eastern Time

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 2006--Mobile broadcasting--as opposed to streaming "unicast" services--is expected to rapidly become the model of choice for distribution of live television and movies to mobile devices in the United States, and by the end of 2007 approximately four million subscribers will receive entertainment and information on their wireless handsets via mobile broadcast technologies such as DVB-H and MediaFLO.


Senior analyst Ken Hyers reports that recent conversations with major carriers confirmed what ABI Research expected: "The presence of as few as five users simultaneously receiving unicast content from a single cellular base station carrier band can seriously degrade data access for those subscribers. This is further confirmation that broadcast is the only way to get mass market uptake of these services. Already, the market is bearing out that broadcast is the essential method for offering these services."

A recent ABI Research study, "Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services" forecasts that in 2011, mobile TV services will have some 514 million subscribers worldwide. Of that total, the research indicates, 460 million will be subscribers to broadcast services. Broadcast services will have 1.5 million subscribers by the end of 2006. In the US market, most subscribers will be enabled by the wireless carriers' broadcast network partners, including MediaFLO (a subsidiary of Qualcomm), Aloha's Hiwire network, and Crown Castle's Modeo service.

Though ABI Research believes that most of these services will debut at $10/monthly subscription in the US through operators such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, advertising will become an increasingly important source of revenue for mobile broadcast video, and will serve to subsidize high-quality programming.

"Broadcast and Unicast Mobile TV Services" (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/market_research/Mobile_Broadcast_ Video) (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.) explains the market dynamics behind mobile video, including the key industry players, enabling technologies, and business models. Its detailed market segmentation is backed by perceptive analysis, updated with the latest trends, news and vendor partnership announcements.

It forms part of four ABI Research Services--Digital Media Distribution and Management (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Digital_Media_Research_ Service), Mobile Content (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Content_Research_ Service), Mobile Devices (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Devices_Research_ Service), and Mobile Operators (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Mobile_Operators_Research _Service)--that include research reports and briefs, online databases, forecasts, ABI Insights, the ABI Vendor Matrix and analyst inquiry support. (Due to length, the URLs above may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations supporting annual research programs, intelligence services and market reports in broadband and multimedia, RFID and M2M, wireless connectivity, mobile wireless, transportation, and emerging technologies. For information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

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