The European Commission today endorsed DVB-H as its preferred technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting. The decision has been reported as a ‘soft pushing for DVB-H,’ under which member states will be required to encourage the use of DVB-H but will not have to ban other standards from their market.

The move represents the Commission’s attempts to establish a single market for mobile TV across its 27 member states. By promoting a common standard, the Commission aims to avoid market fragmentation and allow economies of scale and affordable services. DVB-H is already backed by Nokia and Motorola, among others, but other broadcasting standards such as Qualcomm’s MediaFLO and South Korean standard T-DMB have also been deployed globally. According to a Thomson Financial report, the Commission estimates that the single market for mobile TV in Europe could generate up to €20 billion by 2011, reaching some 500 million customers worldwide.