The severe limitations on the current version of mobile television suggest it is unlikely to help the mobile companies recoup the billions of pounds they have spent on 3G. Despite this, mobile television will be the main focus of this week’s 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona — which is expected to draw 50,000 executives to the biggest annual gathering of the wireless industry.

Hyacinth Nwana at Arqiva, the television-transmission company, said each 3G network would support only about 100,000 viewers —a tiny fraction of the 15m subscribers that the big operators have today.

Nwana said each mobile cell could support only about seven viewers. Any more would cause other mobile users to drop calls or suffer network interference.

“The 3G guys have an incentive to fill their largely vacant 3G networks right now,” said Nwana. “You must look at the Vodafone/Sky deal in that sort of context.”

Vodafone is offering 19 channels via a partnership with BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster that is 37.2% owned by News Corporation, the ultimate owner of The Sunday Times. It has just started charging £5 a month.

Orange is also offering a 3G television service, for which it charges £10 a month after a free introductory period.

Although TV and other video can be streamed over 3G networks, it is not a broadcast technology.

Consequently, additional users quickly eat up the available network capacity. “3G does not scale,” said Nwana.

Vodafone and Orange admitted the figures from Arqiva, previously the broadcast division of NTL, were correct. “That’s absolutely right,” said Orange.

The limitations of television over 3G underlines the need for alternative technologies, such as DVB-H, a true mobile broadcast technology. O2 and Nokia, along with Arqiva, have been testing a DVB-H service in Oxford. However, Ofcom, the regulator, has yet to allocate any radio spectrum for DVB-H services, and is conducting a review that is expected to run until at least the end of this year.

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