Mobile to Score at World Cup. Will mobile broadcasting be shown the red card?
Will mobile VoIP score early and often?

FIFA World Cup may be one of the most popular sporting extravaganzas in the world, but when the tournament finally kicks off Friday, it will be little more than mobile technology’s opening act before the main event in Beijing in 2008.

Mobile broadcast technology is truly not ready for a unique, live event such as the World Cup, but it will provide a proving ground of sorts for what will be the real coming-of-age of mobile broadcast technology at the Olympics, two years from now.

As a large percentage of the cell-phone-wielding attendees at the World Cup in Germany will be from non-European countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, the World Cup may also be the coming-out party for mobile VoIP services.

“Using the FIFA World Cup as a hook for mobile TV services makes sense,” said Eden Zoller, principal analyst with Ovum. “It’s a hugely popular event around the world that has the potential to engage a mass market.”

But there is a major caveat.

“People will approach it with high expectations and a great deal of passion so operators must get it right,” she said. “This is critical for new DVB-H [digital video broadcasting – handheld] broadcast networks, but also for 3G, which will have to cope with massive peaks.”

But service providers run a major risk, Ms. Zoller added, because poor service could tarnish the world’s impression of mobile TV.

Expensive International Calls
Expensive international calls could also sour attendees on mobile voice service and perhaps open the door for mobile VoIP services providers such as MiMO, RebTel, and Jajah (see Why Mobile Carriers Avoid VoIP).

According to a report from Informa Telecoms & Media (ITM), the expected 1 million World Cup attendees will spend $46 million on mobile calls and text and video messages over the course of the monthlong event (see Jajah Dials Cell Phones).

ITM estimates that each person will generate an average of $46 in roaming charges, which would not be too bad for European attendees.

“Recent price cuts announced by operators such as Orange and Vodafone are going to benefit fans of teams inside the European Union, but it’s worth remembering that 21 of the teams in the tournament are from non-European countries,” said ITM’s chief research officer, Mark Newman.

“Many may opt for purchasing local SIM [subscriber identity module] cards or other alternative roaming solutions, as advocated by tourist boards and some mobile operators,” said Mr. Newman.

Brazilians, Mexicans, and Costa Ricans will be paying as much as €3.50 per minute ($4.43) to call home from Germany.

According to the ITM report, a typical roamer will send eight text messages, make 10 voice calls, generate a single data session, possibly to send an MMS (multimedia messaging service) message, and receive six calls during their visit.

What about VoIP?
Faced with high interconnection charges and a rapidly maturing market, mobile service operators have kept international calling rates outrageously high. In most countries, callers have steered clear of making international calls on their cell phones (see VoIP Upstart Makes Mobile Call).

But VoIP service providers are rapidly jumping in to exploit that market opportunity. Companies such as MiMO and RebTel have introduced technology that allows mobile callers to spoof the network or use their standard data services to make international voice calls for as little as $0.02 per minute (see Serving Ethnic Mobile Talk).

VoIP callers could be the biggest mobile winners at FIFA World Cup.

Source: Red Herring.com