EU Declines to Set Mobile TV Standard

This article in Forbes, which reports that the EU Telecommunications ministers, who are meeting in Brussels this week, declined to endorse the adoption of a standard for mobile television (I haven't yet found the original announcements). According to the article:

But EU telecommunications ministers said this time that it was important to let the market decide which type of mobile TV it prefers - and the European Commission should stick to "technology neutrality." They said DVB-H should be a "non-mandatory standard" among other options.

Not surprisingly, the EU Commissioner Viviane Reding was concerned with this laissez-faire attitude, warning that "Europe risks losing its competitive edge unless it moves fast".

This is a truly surprising announcement, coming from the region that mandated the GSM air interface. Many European cognescenti have expressed concerns about the US's refusal to set such a standard. This makes this development so much more remarkable!

Can services successful in one country gain traction in another?

I found this article interesting. It reminds me also of the Mobile Television services that have been successful in Korea and iMode, which was successful in Japan. Text messaging is another example of a technology that was successful in Europe but was slow to take off in the US (it has done so now -- ask any teen or young adult in the US).

These are the latest examples of technologies that have been successul in one country that may or may not translate to successful services in other countries. It is clear that cultural values are a piece of this, but so are living arrangements, communting arrangements, etc.

EU Endorses Cell-Phone TV Standard

I guess this has been Europe week ... I found this item interesting:

The European Commission on Wednesday endorsed a Nokia-backed mobile TV standard called DVB-H, saying Europe needed to pick one technology over others and promising to look at ways to mandate its use.

Europe's choice of DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, was expected. The move will likely prevent rival standards, such as U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc.'s MediaFLO and others developed by Chinese and South Korean manufacturers, from gaining ground in the world's richest market.

South Korea currently has two rival systems for mobile video and is most likely further along than most on this, both in terms of business models, consumer adoption and deployment.

Do you think it is necessary to have a single standard as opposed to allowing for competing standards? What factors other than licensing fees do you think may have played a role in this outcome?