From basement minimalism in Soho to corporate velour on the South Bank

Earlier today, I was with the indies and freelancers of NMK's (New Media Knowledge) 'I want my IPTV' event in the cool minimalist white walled basement of 01zero-one; the Soho 'outpost' of the University of Westminster. Now, I'm at the London Centre Meeting of RTS (Royal Television Society) in the ITV Preview Studio's blue velour with 22nd floor panoramic views to hear about TV over mobile. Chair: Martin Farrimond, Independent Consultant.

Norman Green opened the event by telling us that the event was full - 84 people had accepted the invitation and he'd had to turn away other RTS colleagues. He'd e-mailed everyone to confirm their attendance and still people hadn't shown. He was understandably annoyed - so you 'no-shows' had better watch it!

The notes I blogged in realtime are below - tidied up but not edited. In this section, I provide some observations based on the perspectives of the events.

Different pictures of Ofcom emerge

At the NMK event, the general consensus appeared to be that Ofcom was taking a very 'hands off' approach to the regulation of IPTV - a couple of speakers mentioned that they'd tried to engage Ofcom but not really got anywhere. In discussion, speakers at NMK said - if it's on a PC then Ofcom don't want to know; if it's on a TV (through a set top box) then they do. Obviously Ofcom doesn't want to be in a position of attempting to 'regulate the internet'.

At the RTS event, Mike Short of O2 indicated that Ofcom had taken close interest in the Oxford mobile TV trial, particularly in respect of advertising. It sounds like BT Movio had a similar level of Ofcom interest to that of O2. O2's trial used DVB-H and BTused DAB-IP. In the presentation, Matt McCann made much of the fact that BT Wholesale's uses an IP network - which he indicated was a 'bearer' neutral approach.

So, on the one hand you have TV running over IP on the internet to a computer and on the other you have TV over IP on the Digital Audio Broadcast Network to a computer (which just happens to be a mobile handset). And Ofcom regulates one and not the other? Actually, once this thing really kicks off Ofcom won't be able to regulate it. And David Currie is too smart to play the 21st Century Canute!

Spectrum a big issue for O2; rights a potential minefield

Mike Short is a very eloquent advocate for the potential opportunity for the UK in mobile TV. He is concerned that we'll do our usual UK thing of not getting on with it commercially after a good start technically. He's hoping UK government will get the spectrum regulatory part of this right. Well, he can hope.

Handset availability and price likely to be an issue for BT

BT's solution is designed for DAB - mainly used by the UK at the moment. Short argues that this will give BT a problem in getting a special handset just for DAB-IP. That's why O2 went for FM radio and why, he argues, DVB-H is the one to go for. It's a good argument. But I wonder what will happen if the Japanese adopt DAB - I know from my trip to Japan last May, that they are watching the UK digital radio scene very carefully.

NMK and RTS considered

I enjoyed both events very much - both well thought through and delivered.