With more and more mobile phones aspiring to become television sets, Samsung and Nokia have announced their intention to team up to ensure greater interoperability between handsets.

Samsung and Nokia are planning to work together to achieve interoperability between their DVB – H (digital video broadcast – handheld) enabled mobile devices and the open standards-based Nokia network services system.

Both companies see the move mobile television as a massive growth area and consider the availability of interoperable DVB-H enabled devices and services as a key factor in further opening up the market.

The companies have chosen DVB-H since it offers up to 50 television channels and low battery consumption while allowing the mobile phone user do other things on the phone at the same time.

The deal is meant to encourage greater adoption of broadcast mobile TV services and speed up service deployment.

Samsung and Nokia will work to support solutions based on the open OMA BCAST standard available for operator partners interested in deploying multi-vendor mobile TV services and trials in 2007 and onward.

According to Harri Mannisto, director of multimedia at Nokia, the standard is essential in launching mobile TV services on a global scale.

In September 2006 Nokia had announced a similar tie-up with Motorola.

Samsung has already commercialised handsets based on the CBMS OSF standard, and will develop the OMA BCAST standard-based mobile TV handset.

Kwang Suk Hyun, a senior official at Samsung Electronics Company, said the new development would enhance the Samsung customers’ flexibility in choosing suitable standards based on their business models.

He said the well-defined service and content protection profiles within the OMA BCAST standard – like the OMA DRM, which is already available – provide the ideal path towards standardised solutions, enabling a coherent and open market for successful worldwide mobile TV deployments.

DVB-H technology is closely related to the terrestrial DVB-T technology deployed in Australia to deliver digital television. It uses the same frequency ranges, the same transmitters and is received on handsets with an added-on digital TV receiver. A single DVB-T channel can deliver up to 50 DVB-H channels.

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