On Monday, EU commissioners finally chose a mobile TV standard, preferring DVB-H, or Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds, the most widely used mobile TV format in Europe, over rival standards such as Qualcomm Inc."s MediaFLO and another known as DMB that is favored by Chinese and South Korean manufacturers. DVB-H enjoys broad support among handset makers, including Nokia, Motorola, Philips, Sagem, Sony, Ericsson, Samsung and major European cell phone operators Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile; in comparison, MediaFLO"s only support came from US companies Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
As a result of the commission"s choice, EU nations are ordered to favor DVB-H to create economies of scale and get the nascent technology off the ground. "They can do that by labeling, they can do that by promoting it in attributing licenses and so on," said EU spokesman Martin Selmayr. Of course, the impact of the EU"s choice is limited: EU nations can choose to avoid making decisions favoring the format and are under no obligation to eliminate other standards.