Telegent Chips Aim to Speed Mobile TV Service Delivery

Looking to power the near-term launch of carrier mobile TV services, Telegent Systems Inc. has begun shipping a pair of chips that it claims integrate receiver functionalities from antenna input to digital video output.

Telegent makes chips that embody advanced RF and digital signal processing technologies for mobile TV in cellular phones and other portable devices. It claims its chips will enable handset makers and carriers to launch new wares with mobile TV before the holiday season.

“Carriers believe that mobile video is one of many data opportunities to stimulate data ARPU especially when voice is commoditized,” said William Ho, senior analyst for wireless services at Current Analysis. “The challenges that carriers face is the actual mass market adoption. We have early adopters buying into mobile video today and the trick is to seed the most receptive demographic (the under-30 set) to believe that they need this as part of their lifestyle very much like some of them cannot live without texting or IM'ing as a means of communication.”

With that goal in mind, Telegent built its TLG1100 to support NTSC and PAL, while the TLG1130 supports DVB-H, DVB-T and NTSC and PAL video formats. The hybrid TLG1130 offering enables the reception of both existing and new mobile broadcasts on any mobile device.

This, the vendor maintains, enhances mobile TV letting consumers watch their favorite network programs, while supporting made-for-mobile content.

Telegent claims it intends to further support the expected growth of mobile TV by integrating its technology into automobiles, laptops, and other mobile devices, but would not say when.

“This is an interesting approach on a chipset to receive mobile video. This product is niched for broadcast video very much like a handheld TV,” explained Ho. “Currently, the solutions pushed for mobile video by carriers are via the cellular network, using the carrier's bandwidth. This is a unicast situation that requires the handset to talk to the network to ensure that the data is being delivered either in a streamed or downloaded fashion, which consumes power and bandwidth.”

A chip that consumes less power is a good thing and a building block element to getting broadcast video capable handsets on the market, according to Ho. Yet another important element is the antennas that will go into the handsets as carrier have to deal with a lot of operating cellular/PCS frequencies (e.g. 800/850/1900 in US plus the impending 1.7/2.1 GHz from the AWS auction) on top of the DVB-H (1.6 ) that Modeo operates in the United States.

“It's not unusual to have multiple antennas built into handsets to deal with this,” said Ho. “So it's a tricky choice for manufacturers to pick what they'll build unless a carrier or operator signals its intention on what broadcast technology it'll support. In the U.S., the carriers call the shots because for the most part, customers buy from carriers. It may be a different dynamic in Asia and Europe where customer usually pays full freight on the handset.”

Telegent Systems’ products “represent a breakthrough opportunity for handset makers, carriers, and broadcasters," said Reed Hundt, former chairman of the FCC and a member of the board of directors for Telegent Systems, in prepared comments. "Finally, there is a technology that merges the ease of watching broadcast television with the convenience of carrying cell phones in our hands."

Telegent Systems Inc. www.telegent.com

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines