[12-14-07 – Satellite Today] Alcatel Lucent announced Dec. 14 that it had teamed up with mobile operator 3 Italia and Italian public broadcaster RAI to launch the first trial of Mobile TV based on the DVB-SH (Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite services to Handhelds) standard in Italy.
    The trial will take place in Turin, one of Italy’s largest cities. The first phase of the trial, taking place from December 2007 to March 2008, will consist of a technology trial to validate the capability of DVB-SH to make available a large number of high-quality mobile TV channels, in various usage conditions.
    DVB-SH is an evolution of DVB-H, which according to Alcatel Lucent, provides higher spectrum efficiency. The technology also allows integration with hybrid satellite/terrestrial networks. The trial, based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Unlimited Mobile TV solution, uses a multi-layer DVB-SH terrestrial network blending low-power transmitters from a mobile operator and medium-power transmitters from a broadcaster.