Adding to its patent woes in the US, Qualcomm received a setback in Europe, too, last week, when the European Commission endorsed DVB-H—and not Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology—as the single standard for mobile television deployments in the region, and said it would start to mandate rollouts, including spectrum allocation, for the services to finally get off the ground.

Unsurprisingly, the FLO Forum—a Qualcomm-backed consortium of vendors, content providers and operators—issued a statement saying the decision to back one standard could stall the development of “a healthy European mobile TV ecosystem,” and that the market, not the government, should decide what works best. The WorldDMB has also weighed in with its response: “[We] continue to be mystified by the Commission’s unilateral support of DVB-H for mobile television in Europe, apparently to the exclusion of all other mobile TV standards.” 

Both the FLO Forum and WorldDMB claim that the decision to endorse DVB-H flies in the face of the principle of technology neutrality, but of course the EU does not have any legal requirement to adhere to this. It will be worth watching whether these groups try to fight their case any further.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, Anthony Lilley, the CEO of production company Magic Lantern, also brings up the issue of letting the market, and not politicians, decide what will work in mobile TV. But he also believes that to date not enough of the content has been compelling enough to watch—whatever standard is used.