As expected, the European Commission just did the obvious and made the EU's de facto DVB-H standard, standard. The move is expected to accelerate the deployment of mobile television services across Europe in the same way that GSM standardization in the early 90s gave Europe a head-start on backwater cellular locations like North America. So get outta Dodge Qualcomm and South Korea with your MediaFLO and DMB mobile television technologies, you aren't welcome around Brussels anymore.

The decision is not at all surprising, as Nokia has almost taken it for sure that Europe will prefer the technology supported by them, since many other manufacturers, like Motorola, Philips, Sagem, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, have preferred this technology and a number of network operators, like Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile have already made it available on their networks. Although DVB-H is a standard, its use is not obligatory. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain haven't yet officially voted on it yet. The European Commission has asked EU countries to make the frequency bands (including the UHF range) necessary for the technology free as soon as possible.