A panel with politicians from the European Union, the United States of America and Japan produced a good debate about mobile TV and how it should be regulated. Naturally, David A. Gross, Ambassador and US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy said that market forces should prevail and Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and the Media for the EC said that sometimes the government needs to set the standard, reports BetaNews. Reding doesn’t appear ready to entertain any notions of not mandating a standard. “While one of the key missions in her job is to ensure competition, there comes a time, she told the audience today, where someone in government needs to intervene, particularly to choose a standard...When it comes to the issue of determining which technological format is best in any given market or service, Reding said at one point, “I think that markets should solve some problems. But sometimes the markets are very slow.” And sometimes the industry gets bogged down in deliberations. ”So that’s when I decide, and that’s it”. Reding has mandated that DVB-H will be the mobile TV standard for Europe, raising complaints from backers of other standards, particularly DMB which had a few services live.

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