There are still kids in the streets but you'll be able to get 30 channels on your cellphone...

I will translate the press release from Ancel, the state-owned cellular phone company in Uruguay. It's actually pretty neat that they're making the latest technology available... to be fair the US has kids in the streets too. Just not quite so visibly.

Uruguay finally decided what its going to do about digital television broadcasting. I was glad to see they went with the rest of the world and chose something called DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting). It's not the standard that the US, Mexico and Canada use - but all of Europe and most of Asia have decided upon DVB. Japan does its own thing, and Brazil decided to do a variant of the Japanese standard that only works in Brazil.

Result? DVB set-top box hardware is dirt cheap due to mass production. In Brazil the cost is still quite high. Uruguay made a great decision going with DVB.

But my subject line was about cellphones. There are several flavors of DVB. There's DVB-T (terrestrial) which one receives with a rooftop antenna for your TV/set-top box. DVB-C (cable) - digital cable European style. DVB-H (handheld) - or TV on your cellphone. There is also a DVB-S (satellite) and a DVB-S2 (satellite but more useful for high definition TV).

The only ones of these standards that have made any penetration into North America - and quite unofficially at that - are DVB-S and DVB-S2. Dish Network uses them as do the satellite trucks used to collect TV news.

So Uruguay has decided to deploy DVB-H in Punta del Este. It's a good market to deploy it - it's going to have the best possibility of compatible handsets being there.

It could be deployed in Montevideo but I'm quite certain it would cause deaths or injury. The deaths/injuries would either be caused by TV-watching pedestrians walking into traffic or by TV-watching bus riders not using headphones.

Anyway, a translation of Ancel's press-release:
"ANCEL launches for the first time in the region a digital TV service in DVB-H.

From the next 25th of January, Punta del Este will have this service that permits direct TV reception on portable screens, like cellular phones.

To experiment with this service, Ancel already has new mobile handsets available.

The system to be used is the European Digital Video Broadcasting - Handhelds, better known as DVB-H, that was recently approved by the Executive Branch (of the government) as an official standard for digital mobile TV.

This technology permits the users to see excellent quality of digital audio and video signals on cellular phones that have the ability to recieve DVB-H.

In the first step of the tests 5 channels will be transmitted. (Channel 7 Cerro Pan de Azucar, Canal 5 TVEO, Canal C5N de Argentina, Television Nacional de Chile y Record de Brasil) - but DVB-H can transmit up to a maximum of 30 simultaneous signals.

Ancel is a pioneer in bringing this technology to Uruguay and to the region. Count on it, with the help and technical collaboration of Nokia."

Ok, well this is all well and good. If it puts Canal 5 TVEO on one more screen clearly its a success in my mind - Channel 5 was never really clearly visible from any location where I ever lived or visited. Didn't matter if it was Salinas, Pando, Montevideo - it was visible but snowy. Channel 7 would already be available in analog form in Punta so that's an easy one to add... and I bet the other three are chosen because they have largely local content and are thus easy to license.

The service may be free to begin with, but I'm sure that when they add ESPN and TyC, the big sports channels - there's going to be a cost. The budget of the "average" Uruguayan is stretched pretty thin as it is. It'll be interesting to see how they package it when such premium channels become available. Nevermind that the handset is going to cost a fortune.