What do you think is apt to be the most frustrating part about viewing video on a cell phone?

That question was posed to 1,000 U.S. online consumers in a survey released by Bamboo MediaCasting Inc. in conjunction with Chicago market researcher Synovate to highlight some issues that the mobile media industry still needs to resolve.

"The key finding from the survey of American mobile phone users was that the user experience was a huge concern for them with regard to viewing video content on their phones, from slow loading to poor image quality," said Guy Morag, CEO of Bamboo, Tel Aviv, Israel. "In fact, next to cost, this was the greatest concern."

Among those who did not cite cost, 45.5 percent anticipate that image quality will be poor and 27 percent expect speed will be an issue -- that is, they expect that content will be slow to load.

Also, 17 percent said the downloading process will be too complex and 10 percent anticipate that content choices will be limited.

The study was conducted in early March and found that 51 percent of total respondents expect that mobile video subscriptions will be too expensive.

Bamboo aids in mobile content delivery and provides scheduled, push delivery of subscription content to mobile customers.

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According to Mr. Morag, "poor user experience raises two issues for mobile marketers."

The first issue is that "if users have a frustrating experience, they won't adopt the technology and mobile marketers won't have anyone to market to," Mr. Morag said. "You only have one chance to make a first impression."

The second issue is that "[problems with] image quality that come with streaming and downloading don't provide a good platform to deliver a quality brand image," he said. "It's hard to imagine a high-end brand like Mercedes or Tiffany or even a more general consumer brand like Nike wanting their advertising to be delivered in a jerky or pixilated image quality."

Due to the anticipated 3G network adoption and broad consumer interest, the number of mobile content subscribers is expected to grow to 462 million worldwide over the next five years, according to ABI Research.

For its part, IDC has estimated the U.S. audience for mobile video at more than 25 million by 2011.

Also, Juniper Research predicts that mobile entertainment revenues will jump from $20 billion to $65 billion over the same period.

"Mobile marketers should understand the current limitations of streaming and downloading and consider other modes of delivery such as broadcast or background push delivery of mobile content -- delivery methods that come much closer to ensuring quality," Mr. Morag said.

"Push delivery is the most effective for advertisers because it doesn't rely on network reliability," he said.

"We feel confident that mobile marketing will continue to grow, but this study indicates that both cost and user experience are top-of-mind and are potential barriers to getting people to change their behavior and watch video on their phones."