Handset maker ZTE said Tuesday that it has partnered with Telegent Systems to bring television to handsets -- but it might be years before the technology penetrates the United States.

Telegent manufactures components that allow handsets to receive over-the-air broadcasts, both in analog and in digital formats. Shenzhen ZTE Mobile Telecom (ZTE) said that it will use Telegent's solutions inside its phones for two years.

Telegent's solutions are currently available in more than 80 handset models worldwide sold in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Africa -- but not the United States.

Why? According to Weijie Yun, chief executive of Telegent Systems, the fault lies with the mobile-phone carriers, such as Sprint or Verizon. (Yun did not name any carriers.)

Typically, new features in phones originate in Asia, then make their way to the United States after European carriers adopt them. "The U.S. is also a tightly operator-controlled market in comparison to other regions, where consumers can buy handsets on the retail market independent of the operator service," Yun said via email. "This slows down feature adoption because it is a more complex process to get a feature into an operator handset than into the retail channel. We believe that once operators in regions such as Latin America or Western Europe have validated the benefits of having free-to-air mobile TV in their product portfolio, then the US will follow.

"It is just a matter of time until the feature ultimately comes to the U.S.," Yun said.

Yun noted that carriers who have rolled out subscription TV services, such as Verizon's V-CAST, will likely be reluctant to allow users free access to television on those same handsets. "[But] we believe that free-to-air mobile TV is not only complementary to subscription content, but can also help drive it," Yun said.

However, both LG and Samsung are also developing "in-band" television systems called MPH and A-VSB, respectively. The in-band technology will allow broadcasters to simply add broadcasting to mobile devices.

Witin the U.S., a standard known as ATSC-M/H is expected to be announced in 2009. Then local broadcasters will be free to use part of their digital channel allocation to broadcast handheld-formatted programs, likely beginning in 2010.

Source:pcmag.com