Electronic News sat down to discuss the long-overdue future of mobile TV with Ed Sawma, senior director of applications marketing at Motorola; Penny Cornali, technical marketing director at PacketVideo; Scott Wills, president and COO of HiWire, and Rutton Ruttonsha, senior VP at NXP. What follows are excerpts of that conversation.

Electronic News: What do people expect from mobile TV? Is it the same programming they already get or something new?

Wills: There isn't any one thing consumers are looking for. ... They want familiar brands. They want to be able to access those brands through a familiar electronic service guide. ... There is also a subset that wants some content tailored for the mobile device. That's about 30 percent of the people. About two-thirds want the traditional content.

Electronic News: How much are people willing to pay for a service, then? Has that ever been determined?

Wills: For this to take off in the United States, we need an advertising-supported service that has some level of subscription fee and definitely not on a pay-per-view basis. You're not going to get mass adoption on a pay-per-view basis.

Sawma: You definitely don't want a pay-per-minute model. Nobody wants to think about how much they're paying when they watch a show.

Ruttonsha: That's the point. It starts off free. You have to hook the users. People love free stuff.

Cornali: They paid for it in Italy.

Ruttonsha: No, it was free for the first three months and then they started charging.

Sawma: I think in Europe there's certainly a willingness to pay for a base service. ...

Electronic News: So what's stalling it?

Sawma: In the United States, still the number one reason for purchasing a service or choosing a carrier is quality of voice. In Europe and Asia, that has been subdued. People look at applications and data as a decision maker when they go to buy a handset. In Europe, it's easier to create the coverage because the population is denser.

Cornali: But interoperability is still key here, because handsets don't work on everyone's infrastructure. ...

Electronic News: Isn't part of the issue also confusion on the part of the consumer?

Ruttonsha: Consumers don't get confused.

Electronic News: Sure they do. Do you buy Blu-ray or HD DVD? Do you buy mobile TV on what's available today or do you wait until the price drops and the technology improves? Is mobile TV going to come into your house as a replacement technology or an additional one?

Ruttonsha: I don't think the consumer is confused. I think they are very well informed, and they elect not to choose a product because they know there is a splintering of standards and they could be stuck with an obsolete product.

Wills: But I don't think the consumer confusion issue is inhibiting mobile television growth. I think what's inhibiting growth is caution on the part of the wireless carriers. I don't think any wireless carrier is convinced this is going to be a big business. When I say convinced, I mean that they're going to take several billion dollars to go build out an infrastructure in the U.S. ... That's what's slowing it down-the lack of commitment on the part of wireless carriers. Without that commitment, the networks aren't being built out and the handsets aren't being made.

Sawma: In a lot of parts of the world, it's the broadcasters that are driving the initial trial. They see it as an extension. They're broadcasting to users, and they want to broadcast to you everywhere. As the basic service matures and you get into more interactivity, that's where the mobile operator sees additional revenue.