The Promise of Mobile Datacasting

January 2008
Vikrant Gandhi, Mobile Idustry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan
Guest Author, Inside Mobile
 

My associate at Frost & Sullivan, Vikrant Gandhi, recently wrote an interesting article on mobile datacasting that I thought each of the Inside Mobile subscribers would enjoy.

Much discussion has already occurred regarding the suitability of mobile broadcast networks for multimedia content. Delivery of bandwidth-intensive multimedia content can be improved substantially by mobile broadcast networks, which scale much better than unicast cellular networks. However, the general perception is that only mobile video services will be offered over these networks. The truth is that broadcast networks offer many options beyond basic delivery of mobile video content.

Imagine that a mobile broadcast service provider wants to provide real-time stock information via a mobile broadcast network. Under the current broadcast services paradigm, a video channel within the available pipe would have to be dedicated to providing this information. This is not a very practical approach. Frost & Sullivan's research indicates that entertainment and sports are the two most popular categories of mobile video services. Informational types of content (e.g., sports scores, stock quotes, weather forecasts, etc.) do not need to be delivered as video to provide a compelling user experience. A 'one size fits all' approach may not be a judicious use of the available resources for this type of content.

It can be argued that the entire purpose of rolling out expensive mobile broadcast networks is to overcome the limitations of unicast cellular networks. While it is true that broadcast networks can theoretically support an 'infinite' number of users, they cannot support an infinite number of channels or programs. This is because the total number of available channels needs to be determined in advance and engineered to fit within the finite amount of available broadcast bandwidth. Broadcast network users simply tune into the particular channel they want to watch in a manner quite similar to a television broadcast. This concept and the differences between unicast and broadcast networks can be better explained by a diagram.

From the figure, one can interpret that unicast networks offer a large content catalog to a limited number of users, while broadcast networks offer a limited number of programs to an extremely large number of users. Service providers would like to offer many different types of programs and services in order to be able to target multiple customer segments. The challenge then is to decide how to intelligently divide the total available bandwidth among different services. The lower the bandwidth required to deliver each content service, the greater the number of services that can be offered. If video services, which require a large amount of bandwidth, are the only option for service delivery over broadcast networks, service providers will end up facing some serious challenges. They will only be able to support a very limited number of channels before the available broadcast bandwidth runs out.

Mobile Datacasting

Enter mobile datacasting. Datacasting delivers application data over mobile broadcast networks, with bandwidth utilization per application typically ranging from 1 to 20 kbps. This is a factor of at least 10 (or more) lower than the 250 kbps required for delivery of a single video channel. With the right infrastructure in place, application developers can use mobile broadcast networks for background transmission of data without having to deal with issues such as bandwidth management, segmentation, and reliability. This opens up several new possibilities for the types of services delivered over broadcast networks. There is a wide range of interesting user-experiences that can be enabled through datacasting.

Historically, the term "datacast services" has referred to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital television signals and has not referred to data inherent to the medium (such as Program and System Information Protocol data that defines virtual channels within digital TV, or the Electronic Programming Guide). In many mobile broadcast environments (e.g., DVB-H), all content is actually delivered as IP packets multiplexed within a transport stream, so the distinction of "datacast services" as services requiring low bandwidth is purely a functional distinction and not an architectural issue.

The three important elements that are required for mobile datacasting services could be summed up as below:

• A network side server implementation - to accept information feeds retrieved from content providers and to manage access to broadcast network bandwidth. The information feeds could be a real-time or a time-delayed input, depending upon the expectations.

• A client implementation on the handset - to pull data from the broadcast network and present it to the application layer. The client should also interface with the DRM / Conditional Access systems as necessary to authenticate subscribers and protect delivered content.

• Actual datacast applications ?? these are the user-facing applications on the mobile device that present the datacast information to the mobile user within the defined presentation rules.

So what types of data (and applications) are suited for datacasting? While the types of applications that could be supported by mobile datacasting are potentially unlimited, some examples of datacasting applications include the following:

• Real-time sports datacasting - a continuous stream of data presenting live sports scores and play-by-play

• Maps and directions ?? many broadcast networks are location aware, and locally targeted map and traffic information can be delivered using these networks

• Stock tickers and other financial information - Similar to sports datacasting, a datacast application to display stock quotes in real-time

• Alerts - public safety alerts and other important notifications can be delivered to millions of subscribers simultaneously using the broadcast network without generating congestion on the voice network

• Active Wallpaper - this is an interesting use of datacasting in which continuously updated information (e.g., news, weather, sports) is presented within the phone's wallpaper (hence the name 'active wallpaper).

The figure below shows examples of some datacasting applications:

Source: Roundbox, Inc.
 

As the above figure demonstrates, there are many interesting possibilities with datacasting. Applications can be used to deliver real-time information such as sports scores, stock quotes, and weather forecasts. They can even be used to present "teaser content" related to the premium content catalog of the mobile operator in order to drive commerce transactions. Many applications also incorporate mobile advertising, which has the potential to generate additional revenues.

Key Industry Participant ?? Roundbox, Inc.

Roundbox provides end-to-end broadcast and multicast software solutions for mobile operators and handset manufacturers. Their most well-known partner is Gemstar with the TV-Guide brand in which they are providing the Electronic Service Guide (ESG) for a number of mobile broadcast networks.

The company's infrastructure and application software products help operators deliver new, feature-rich services such as mobile TV and datacast applications, while leveraging multiple broadcast technologies including DVB-H, MediaFLO, DMB, BCMCS, and MBMS.

Roundbox has been one of the first companies globally to demonstrate live mobile datacasting applications. The company first demonstrated datacasting applications on FLO-enabled 3G handsets at the CTIA Wireless event in early 2006, and has since been involved in datacasting trials in virtually all major mobile communication markets globally. As mentioned, Roundbox' solutions support multiple bearer technologies such as DVB-H, FLO, DAB, BCMCS and others, which allows Roundbox' solutions to be deployed in many different regions, with different service providers. Roundbox is one of the very few companies to demonstrate its services over both FLO and DVB-H networks.

It is incumbent upon the key enablers to encourage participation of application developers in the mobile datacasting ecosystem. This is the approach taken by Roundbox. The company offers broadcast client and server toolkits to developers to enable them to build datacast applications themselves. The company also provides a developer portal through which developers can learn how to build and test datacast applications. Frost & Sullivan expects this initiative to be a key driver of mobile datacasting, which will also allow the service providers to capture the long tail of mobile content within the broadcasting environment.

Final Comments

There is a clear market opportunity for mobile datacasting solutions, some of which could even command a monthly premium charge. The challenge for a relatively small company such as Roundbox is to get as many partnerships in place as possible. When you review the program guide on future mobile handsets, Roundbox will likely be the company providing that as well as powering the datacasting services.

Written by:

Vikrant Gandhi
Industry Analyst
 

Edited by:

J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D.
VP & Chief Analyst
Mobile & Wireless
Frost & Sullivan