Will you be paying to watch TV on your mobile phone?

Live TV on mobile phones is a stagnant market but one that is expected to grow rapidly and reach up to 8 billion by 2011. There is now intense competition between phone companies such as Nokia and Qualcomm. It is not a competition over voice signals but a competition over mobile to signals over cell phones. There are at least six different contenders competing in the European market and there are still others emerging globally.

This is especially so in China and Japan. However none of the mobile tv standards is compatible and all require significant infrastructure investment. In Britain, services will not be available until 2012 and it would likely take another one to two years before services could be rolled out. The Chinese will be ready to offer mobile tv services at the Olympics in 2008 but there is a chance the British won’t be able to do the same four years later.

The question to ask here is whether there will be a definite great demand for mobile tv and whether customers have to pay for it on their mobile phones if the demand gets too great.