The Mobile DTV Alliance, an industry advocate (pushing DVB-H as the mobile TV tech) comprised supported by Motorola and Nokia, among others, believes it has found the right price consumers will pay for viewing TV on cell phones: a flat $20 a month. In a white paper entitled “The Economics of Mobile TV,” the alliance suggests the building of a separate broadcast network by the industry. The study estimates constructing such a network would cost a carrier between $500 million and $2 billion. The expense would be justified because carriers would more than easily recoup the cost. Hypothetically, the study says, if a quarter of the subscribers of U.S. operators are willing to pay $20 a month for the service, carriers would take in a total of $12 billion annually. At that rate, even if half of the revenue went directly to content owners, and the entire investment in infrastructure was amortized over one year, “there is still plenty of profit to share.” Since the group is comprised of companies that would build such a system, the study provides a clear hint of where the industry feels the direction of mobile TV should go in. PDF Release, and the download page is here.