Mobile has been getting more attention of late, and was the focus of an early panel at the Future TV Show in New York today. While mobile TV is becoming more prevalent in both Europe and the U.S., it is still clouded by rights issues and adoption has been slow.

Juhani Kivikangas, VP, Content for TeliaSonera said that while the technology and business models for mobile content delivery is moving quickly, adoption is still low thanks in large part to the diversity of handsets on the market and the rights issues involved.

Bin Shen, a VP at Sprint Nextel which has the largest base of mobile TV users said he believes that the next wave of growth for the internet will come from mobile. Sprint currently has about 1 million active users for its mobile TV service, and Shen expects widespread market adoption by 2010.

While Sprint is focused on WiMax, which Shen said will be 4x-5x faster than current 3G technology, at a more efficient economic structure he stressed that it is intended for devices beyond the handset itsef and that 3G is a solid technology for mobile content delivery.

The biggest issue, as with so many areas of new media is monetization, said Richard Kanee, Director of Business Development for CTV Digital. “Without the content there aren’t the subscribers, but without the subscribers there isn’t the money to pay for those rights…where is the value proposition, who’s going to move first?”

Tags: FutureTV Mobile TV

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm and is filed under technology, video syndication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.