Well, it’s official: After months of pushing DVB-H, the European Union is making it the official standard for mobile television broadcasting in an attempt to give the burgeoning mobile TV sector a push (via Reuters). DVB-H, developed by an industry consortium that includes Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Motorola, (NYSE: MOT) will be published by the European Commission in the list of official EU Standards and will enter into force in February next year. While member states would be required to support the implementation and use of DVB-H, they would not be required to ban other standards.

The European Union’s support for DVB-H has been highly controversial. Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands led the drive to block the move, but couldn’t muster up the two-thirds majority support from the EU member nations needed to stop it. They have argued that the market should decide the standard, and that a mandatory requirement is unnecessary. Plus, some constituent companies, such as Virgin in the UK, have already invested in DAB, another mobile TV standard. EU media commissioner Vivian Reding has compared the adoption of DVB-H to that of mobile phone standard GSM. She has argued it was the EU’s adoption of GSM that enabled Europe to move forward in the industry, rather than be bogged down in standards wars and non-interoperable products, as now is the case in the US.

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