FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German media authorities should award a national license for mobile television using the DVB-H broadcast standard by the end of the month, a spokeswoman for the directors' conference of the state media authorities said.

The spokeswoman said on Tuesday the interested parties -- who include a consortium of T-Mobile and the German units of O2 and Vodafone -- had until Friday to polish their proposals.

A winner should be chosen in mid- to late August, she said.

Among other companies competing for a license are broadcasters Premiere , ProSiebenSat.1 and various units of the RTL Group .

Germany's cartel office has said it will decide by Aug 13 whether to allow the three mobile operators to compete for the license as a consortium.

German media authorities aim for mobile TV using a broadcast standard to be a nationwide reality in Germany by next year's Euro 2008 soccer championship, due to be held in June in Austria and Switzerland.

After the awarding of the broadcast license, a decision still has to be made by Germany's networks regulator on who will build the DBV-H network.

It is possible to transmit TV over the third-generation mobile telephony standard UMTS but it is expensive to watch and impractical for mass viewing as it cannot handle large amounts of traffic.

Previously, it had been hoped that broadcast-standard mobile TV would be ready for the 2006 soccer World Cup that was held in Germany but the roll-out was held up by a dispute about whether to endorse DVB-H or the rival DMB standard.
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