In Short

A round-up of other technology stories in brief.

Frequencies sought for mobile TV

The European telecoms industry is looking for new, higher frequencies to make up for a shortage of airwaves that can be used to enable consumers to watch television on the go.

This is likely to lead to rising costs for mobile handset vendors and possibly also for telecoms operators. This, in turn, will mean higher prices for consumers, hampering the fledgling mobile TV business before it starts to take off.

The largest players in the handset industry, led by top handset maker Nokia, are pushing for a DVB-H standard using broadcasting spectrum, like traditional television's UHF band, for mobile television. However that will not be available across Europe until analogue broadcasts are switched off around 2012.

Mobile phone makers and operators are keen to tap the potentially lucrative market for mobile TV, but so far only a few countries have a dedicated spectrum for a mobile TV network.

"Spectrum is a disaster. It could be many years before spectrum is available for DVB-H," said Ben Wood, a consultant at CCS Insights.

Speaking at a 3GSM mobile communications trade show yesterday, DVB Project said it had approved the technical specifications for S-band, opening an available high spectrum across Europe for mobile television broadcasts.

The new DVB-SH would battle with Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology; Ericsson's MBMS, an evolution of 3G technology; and many others. - (Reuters)

Consumers 'turning to Net'

Consumers are increasingly turning to the internet for commercial transactions.

A survey by Vanmson Bourne for CA in Ireland has found that 86 per cent of consumers interact online only, with at least one organisation.

The survey was designed to compare the experience of online customer service with real world-call centres.

The survey found that 60 per cent of people interact with their banks online at all times, and 58 per cent with their mobile phone provider.

However just 19 per cent deal solely online with Government or public services.

One reason behind the trend, according to the survey, is where the online experience scored better for reliability, convenience, cost, speed and eliminating the hassle of constantly having to provide personal details.

Resolutions holding firm

US website traffic figures highlight the power of new year's resolutions, according to January data from Comscore's Media Matric, which measures internet audiences.

January saw significant increases in visits to tax, travel, careers and property websites. Heightened interest in tax software and Microsoft's Vista operating system boosted traffic to the computer software category.

Tough time for chip makers

Chip makers supplying the mobile phone industry are set for tough times as their handset customers are aggressively looking for better deals and investments keep rising.

Over the past week shifts were announced as Infineon was chosen as a main supplier of core handset chips to Nokia, joining Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Qualcomm.

Texas Instrument will start selling more handsets chips to Motorola, making life tougher for Freescale and Qualcomm.

"In the next two years we will see more agility to try different suppliers in an attempt by handset makers to add pressure on traditional suppliers and improve their own profitability," said Frans van Houten, chief executive of Dutch chip maker NXP. - (Reuters)