ROADIBROM - Roadmaping Digital Broadcasting Mobile Convergence
A Research Project between Europe and Asia, founded by the European Commission

Roadibrom project presentation ~ pps

Technology is not just about a better "lifestyle" it is about a better life for everyone. Imagine watching a game show on your mobile phone, while you're sitting in the ICE from Amsterdam to Munich. A question for the audience arises and you have the ability to directly respond and possibly win 10.000 Euro's. You respond by touching the screen of your mobile phone. Dream or Reality? Tomorrow's media is available anytime and practically anywhere. Especially the mobile phone will become a universal gadget in that process.

The future will be more and more digital, mobile and convergent. The digital technology will increasingly blur the boarder between telecommunication, publishing, information technologies, broadcasting and television. The key factor of the change of today's TIME (Telecommunication, Ict, and Media) industries is digital convergence. Convergence brings not only a fundamental modification to the TIME sector but also offers new possibilities to society and economy. Digital convergence brings together the separate worlds of audio, video, data and voice communication services. Today we can already access the same service and content using different terminals over different types of networks. The boarders between fixed-line and wireless mobile networks are disappearing. In the convergent world, consumers will be in control of their entertainment and media content. Whatever, whenever and wherever they want it.

How will the results effect the society? Who will be the global players in the media business in the future? What content will attract people? Today's media is about to reinvent itself and by doing that it opens a new world of possibilities and challenges. We now have a chance to design that world, we just have to enter it. Be a part of it.

Motivation:

Television is going mobile. The mobile television promises bright prospects to both industry and clients, because of its high definition, its low costs and required low bandwith. However, there is still no worldwide broadcasting standard for mobile television, since every continent has announced its own standard. For europe e.g. it's DVB-H, for the U.S. it's a system called MediaFLO created by the company Qualcomm and for South Korea there are even two established standards, S-DMB and T-DMB. And besides these different standards there are also further barriers to overcome, e.g. interoperability with other technologies to provide some kind of interactivity, regulation problems, policy, the need for suitable business models, social acceptance and cross-industrial implementation challenges. But despite there still remain problems to be solved the client's demand for mobile broadcasting is higher than ever before, no matter what continent  they live in. Big telecommunication companies have already made their own business scenarios for each of those continents. And even there they found a crucial difference between the cultures: While European business trials are mostly based on computer devices the Chinese for example prefer to receive mobile TV on their cell phones. Furthermore the Chinese have much more experience in the mobile digital broadcasting sector as they have already implemented early stages of mobile TV in 2004. Since then China has seen many standards being announced and after a while discarded. Now it faces a selection of its mobile digital broadcasting standards that could also have an important strategic impact on the European implementation process. ROADIBROM, a consortium of companies, tv stations and universities tries to analyse and compare China's and Europe's implementation process in every aspect, from the technical to the economic one to gain important cognitions for the mobile TV development. It furthermore aims at defining scenarios of mobile digital broadcasting for Europe and China that could take place in the future. Based on the outcomes it tries to develop a common stratetic roadmap to support the implemenation of wanted visionary scenarios.

Aims:

The digital convergence project aims at exploring and identifying:

- how looks like convergence applications in 2015
- topics, trends and emerging issues
- which uses and feasible business models will dominate in modify market
- what position can assume existing institutions such as telecommunication operator,  broadcaster, content provider and consumer electronic manufacturer in the value chain
- required constituency
- critical technological, business and societal drivers for the digital convergence transformation
- critical key research and development challenges
- implementation model for a comprehensive European & China

Results:

The overall RoadiBrom project will develop:
- paradigms and a clear baseline on concepts and terminology
- modus operandi how to integrate the strategy
- visionary scenarios for digital broadcasting / mobile convergence applications 2015
- a roadmap with full innovation cycle to implement the multidisciplinary views
- strengthening the community for application development

Work package describtion

WP1

Objectives
The objectives of this task are to collect information about the main digital broadcasting / mobile convergence. Research programmes and policies as well as about existing (running, finalized) relevant research project of digital broadcasting / mobile convergence in Europe and China

WP2

Objectives
This work package prepares and organizes the interaction with the constituency to generate high quality ideas, receive feedback on the scenarios & visions for digital broadcasting / mobile convergence research and shape by 2015.
Specific objectives include:
- Develop a thorough methodology which allows high quality interaction and feedback in both Europe and China
- Conduct and evaluate regional expert interviews for developing potential research and implementation scenarios and visions for digital broadcast / mobile convergence 2015.
Proposing a holistic vision for digital broadcast / mobile convergence 2015

WP3

Objectives
Based on, and in interaction with, the activities and outcomes of the detailed characterization of the baseline (WP1) and the definition of vision for the future including strategic goals (WP2), the main objective of this work package is to
Identify the development needs (gaps), which will serve as the rough input for constructing the roadmap and reaching the stated vision of ROADiBROM.

WP4

Objectives
This work package prepares and organizes the interaction with the constituency to generate high quality ideas, receive feedback on the roadmapping results and build a constituency in public administrations and research. Specific objectives include:
- Develop a thorough methodology which allows high quality interaction and feedback across regionally distributed workshops
- Conduct and evaluate regional workshops for testing potential scenarios and creating roadmap ideas and for gaining feedback on the roadmaps developed and prioritising their elements
- Do online survey about the draft of the roadmap
- Assemble roadmap components and develop a detailed strategic implementation plan 

WP5

Objectives
The objective of this WP is to disseminate the results of the project to as broad an audience as possible to stimulate the debate on the topic and to explore new ways of working in the field of digital broadcasting / mobile convergence until 2015 and thus to contribute to prepare the ground for joint further research in Europe and China level. 

WP6

Objectives
The objectives of the management and coordination work package are to provide the environment for a smooth running of the project in terms of administrative running of the project financial management of the project sophisticated communication within the consortium management of frequent project meetings consortium agreement and IPR managementž

WP6

Objectives
Ensuring the successful and qualitative running of the project including:
- Guaranteeing quality standards and timely presentation of deliverables
- Preventing any operational risk to occur during the project life cycle