Mobile phones are about to conquer yet another entertainment medium — television. According to a recent report from ABI research, despite initial hesitation from cellular operators, the medium finally appears to be moving toward deployment in devices and on mobile carriers' networks.

ABI principal analyst of semiconductor research Alan Varghese says, “[Cellular operators] could see little value in broadcasting TV to the handset, since it did not raise their ARPU (average revenue per user). They also felt that watching TV would drain batteries and prevent the user from making more revenue-generating voice and data calls.”

ABI suggests that this situation is about to change, now that mobile phone and IC vendors have begun adding cellphone television to their new product roadmaps. It notes that several vendors already have mobile phones that can receive TV broadcasts, and that Texas Instruments recently announced development of a single-chip digital TV product.

ABI's study, “Wireless Semiconductors”, examines the issues surrounding television in mobile handsets, especially as they relate to the market for cellphone ICs such as power amplifiers, RF transceivers, baseband, applications processors, camera modules, and newer functions such as WiFi and GPS. It also focuses on the deployment of EDGE, 3G cellular, and HSDPA worldwide.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.