On Wednesday, the European Union is expected to call for DVB-H as the single standard for mobile television for member countries and to that governments use freed-up analog television spectrum to roll out services. Viviane Reding, EU’s commissioner for Information Society and Media, will back her decision up with the argument that DVB-H, which was developed by a consortium of vendors including Nokia and Motorola, is the most widely used standard in the region to date.

Still, the news could spark controversy among operators and vendors that have been investing in other technologies. These include the Qualcomm-backed MediaFLO service used in the U.S. and being trialled by Vodafone in Europe; the much smaller DAB-based service currently running in the U.K. on the Virgin Mobile network; as well as the South Korean government-backed DMB standard. A spokesperson at the Information Society told mocoNews.net that tomorrow’s meeting will be the final one before the summer break, and that all relevant decisions have more or less already been taken regarding the single standard initiative.

Presumably, the EU has taken a lead from South Korea when they decided that a lack of a single standard is the reason for such low adoption: mobile TV penetration in Europe’s most advanced market, Italy, is less than 1 percent. But South Korea, which mandated DMB from the outset, has an adoption rate of close to 10 percent, possibly the highest in the world. (Of course, South Korea has much more impressive mobile data usage overall and may be culturally more inclined to using new technologies, but this point doesn’t get mentioned by the EU.)

The FT mentions that the EU is likely to force countries to adopt DVB-H as early as next year, so that services can be developed in time for the Olympics and the European football championships. 

• EC To Call For EU-Wide Mobile TV Next Week; Annoys Telcos