Four of Europe's largest operators have just completed a trial of TDtv, the mobile TV solution developed by IPWireless. Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica and 3UK joined forces with IPWireless to stage the trial which took place in the Bristol area. The trial proved that TDtv, which utilises the 3GPP Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS) technology, could deliver high quality mobile TV services, even when users were travelling at high speeds. TDtv operates in the TDD spectrum which was allocated to mobile operators with their 3G licences. A key finding from the trial was that TDD could provide equal coverage with WCDMA using only 35% of the cell sites. There were also no coexistence problems with WCDMA. In the trial TDTv was delivering up to 14 high quality TV channels using just 5MHz of spectrum. Commenting on the trial, Jon Hambidge, marketing vice president at IPWireless said: "TDtv offers a very viable TV platform with a huge bonus for operators in terms of coverage. Hambidge anticipates that the operators involved in the trial would make a decision within four weeks as to whether to go forward with TDtv. "The technology is better than DVB-H and it offers a great business case for operators".
Ian Channing reporting from Barcelona