 potential, with interactive TV and the extension of advertising at the forefront of that success. These beliefs are based on the fact that TV plays in the lives of people worldwide, mobile sub- scriber penetration has reached (and sometimes exceeded) a high saturation level in many markets, and the subsequent convergence of the broadcast and mobile industries is inevitable. But it is important to keep in mind that not everyone feels joyful about watching TV on a tiny screen; the young generation is most likely to embrace this new viewing experience. Some feel the mobile phone is the most exciting software platform in history; it has become an essential part of just about everyone's lifestyle, and it is truly global. As a result, the simple mobile phone is morphing into a futuristic entertainment Chapter 10 Next-Generation Networks system and the most exciting new technology platform since the Internet. There are more than 1.5 billion mobile phones in use worldwide, compared to just 690 million PCs and laptops. Needless to say, entertainment giants and newly inspired entrepreneurs are rushing to develop songs, graphics, games, and videos to popu- late millions of tiny screens. (Mobile TV is discussed in more detail in Chapter 16, "Emerging Wireless Applications.") DTV Standards Initially, an attempt was made to prevent the fragmentation of the global DTV market into different standards, as was the case with the NTSC, PAL, and SECAM analog standards. However, as usually seems to be the case, the world could not reach agreement on one standard, and as a result, several major standards exist today. These standards fall into two categories: Fixed reception-The fixed-reception digital broadcasting standards include the U.S. Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC; WWW. atsc.org) system, the European DVB-Terrestrial (DVB-T; www.dvb.org) sys- tem, the Japanese Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) system, and the Korean Terrestrial Digital Media Broadcasting system. The most widely adopted standard worldwi