Interactive TV and Mobile Communications: New Dimensions for Value Added Services

摘要

Mobile telecommunication and broadcast technology converge. Western European markets for mobile handsets are saturated and mobile handsets are now commodity. Digital TV as well as is just about to become reality in many European countries. Both fields converge. Broadcast offerings will more and more reach out to mobile handsets and vice versa. In this paper we share our view on converged value added services and describe a step by step approach to mobile-broadcast converged value added services. The approach is characterised by keeping the usage barrier for consumers low and getting them gradually shifted onto a future converged platform for interactive value added TV services. A first pilot implementation of such a converged service as demonstrated in the EU IST Athena project is described.