Today it was the second and last day of the Cable & Satellite International event titled “The Multi-Channel TV To Handhelds Conference” held in London. Some of the highlights were as follows:

• Today’s keynote speaker was Mike Short, Vice Presaident R & D at O2. He pointed out that the UK now has more active UK mobile subscriptions than the total population (62M) and, in his capacity as Chairman of the Mobile Data Assoication, he forecast that the total number of SMS messages sent in 2005 would be 32 billion. On the subject of mobile broadcasting, he identified spectrum rights and content rights as key issues that have to be resolved. He gave more details of the Oxford trial involving O2 as the mobile operator and Arqiva as the network operator.
• Emma Lloyd, Chief Commercial Officer of BT LIvetime, made a presentation on BT Livetime. She distinguishef the BT trial which uses DMB from other trials - such as the Oxford trial - which use DVB-H, explaining that BT had gone for DMB at this stage because it is based on available spectrum and an available infrastructure. The trial involves 1,000 London-based customers within the M25 area. Although users can access 52 digital radio channels, they can only access three televison channles: Sky sports news, Sky news and Blaze (a music video channel with interactivity). BT is the aggregator with Virgin Mobile as the service provider. Although picture quality is inferior to DVB-H, apparently those in the trial report that the service has exceeded their expectations and the EPG has proved a winning feature.
• While most of the two-day conference concentrated on the technical and commercial challenges facing a succcesful take-up of mobile broadcasting, this afternoon two presentations - both by lawyers - at last raised the issue of regulation.
• Monica Ari�o of the Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy at Oxford University and an OfcomWatcher, set out two very different scenarios. If one regards mobile broadcasting as essentially television, then it will come under the provisions of the Television Without Frontiers Directive and one will have to address issues such as quotas, advertising, licensing and even public service broadcasting. On the other hand, if one regards mobile broadcasting as new media, then the E-Commerce Directive would be the applicable legislation and only diminished ex ante regulation would be appropriate. Her personal view was that, instead of asking if we should regulate mobile television, we should rather ask whether conventional broadcasting should be deregulated.
• Ronnie Preiskel, co-founder of Preiskel & Co, pointed out that in 2007 we are likely to see the auctioning of the spectrum relevant to the provision of mobile broadcasting and that spectrum licensing could be seen as an easy way to impose regulation on such services. Ofcom does not want to impose broadcasting regulations on to mobile television, but there will be pressure for this and the revised European Directive could well affect some of these new services.

It is a pity that Ofcom was not represented at this interesting and forward-looking event. Apparently the regulator was invited to provide a speaker but declined to accept the invitation. This is an industry that will not fly without some sort of understanding and backing from Ofcom.