New Technology TV

While the popularity of watching television on cell phones in Japan continues to increase, the profitability of this new venture still eludes most of the companies involved. Some consumers are so enamored with watching sports programming and getting news from the business world on their mobile handsets that their biggest complaints stem from the problem of chronic dead batteries. A certain fraction of users have even started carrying around two phones, so they can switch to the other one, when one dies. During the Soccer World Cup, this summer, it is thought that productivity took a dive since so many workers were more interested in watching goals being scored, rather than working on the next project or report. By all predictions, digital Television on the handset is set to take off, and probably earlier in Japan and South Korea than in the United States. The problem that Japanese companies like DoCoMo find is that it’s hard to make much money, providing this type of service. The content is free -- for now at least -- and while popular, the television enabled phones don’t yet have a huge share of the total cell phone market.

Out of ninety million cell phone users in Japan, only around a million of them have television enabled devices.There are other new, exciting uses for this type of mobile technology. GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) and Video Games, for example, are slated for use with the digital television on the cell phone. The picture is much better quality than the older analog TV phones, and new Nokia handsets have the video screen flip-out from the side of the phone. The screen on the Nokia is a rather puny, 1.65 inches by 2.24 inches, but it pumps out 16 million possible colors with its 320 X 240 pixel configuration. It is a sleek and well designed new phone, and three hours of battery life is the maximum expected if the user is watching television programs. Another downside, other than battery life, is that commuters can watch programs—but only as long as they are commuting above ground. When their trains or other vehicles go underground—they will lose the digital signal. As the television content providers, the cell-phone companies, and the cell-phone manufacturers continue to tweak their business models and decide how to divide the spoils of eventual new revenues, undoubtedly consumers will find new ways to use and enjoy their phones. It is almost certain that this video technology is in its very infancy, and one day, not too far in the future, when we are all equipped with commonplace mobile video devices, we will have a hard time remembering a time when only a small segment of the population had video technology on the go.