Selected Sprint subscribers have been invited to join trials of a mobile TV service from Sprint called VUE. Sprint has not announced this service yet, so it possible that this is just one of the carrier’s many trials of mobile TV technology.
Although Sprint has not confirmed a launch, the trials site shows both the Samsung M250 on its pages. Samsung M250 is expected to be the first phone with mobile TV, offered in the states. It resembles the Korean model but will use MediaFlo, which will also be used by Verizon in the future too
Samsung’s SPH-M250 phone has received approval from the FCC and Sprint will be the carrier of choice. The Bluetooth-capable SPH-M250 takes after a clamshell design and looks rather similar to the B250 T-DMB phone that was launched in Korea.
You can rotate the M250’s screen up to 90 degrees in landscape mode to watch video. The M250 was approved on the 1900MHz band only, most probably due to problems with the antenna when using mobile TV technology in the 2.5GHz band. Sprint will test live TV service with the SPH-M250’s release.
Qualcomm says MediaFLO benefits include:
- Support for transmitting up to 20 streaming channels of QVGA-quality (320×240 pixels) video at up to 30 frames per second, 10 stereo audio channels (HE AAC+ parametric stereo) and up to 800 minutes of distributed Clipcast™ content per day (short-format video clips)
- An average channel switching time of less than two seconds
- Reduced network cost of delivering multimedia content by dramatically decreasing the number of transmitters that need to be deployed.
Sprint, as yet, has made no committment to a single mobile television technology. There are lots of potential candidates:
- Qualcomm’s MediaFLO: Qualcomm’s proprietary technology uses a dedicated, nationwide frequency in the 700 Mhz band (Channel 55).
- Charles Townsend’s HighWire at 700MHZ: Townsend bought two channels of 700Mhz (when the price was cheap). He now says it will be used for mobile TV using the DVB-H standard
- Crown Castle’s Modeo at 1.7 GHz: Crown bought nationwide coverage with their dedicated 6 MHz channel. They will also use the the DVB-H standard.
- MobiTV over WiMAX at 2.5 GHz: Sprint currently uses MobiTV for its cellular service. MobiTV says it will use the multicasting capability of WiMAX to “broadcast” services
- IPWireless with 2.5 GHz or cellular channels: TDtv would utilize UMTS TD-CDMA technology and in the recently defined 3GPP Release 6 Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Standard (MBMS). By the end of 2007, IPWireless claims, the cost of adding TDtv to a handset will be around $10.
- WiFi TV: AT&T and MobiTV announced they will deliver mobile television content over AT&T’s nationwide Wi-Fi network. The service will enable AT&T customers to view live television while connected to one of AT&T’s/SBC’s Wi-Fi hot spots.
A key feature of mobile television is multicasting. Currently cell carriers have to dedicate one channel per user which can quickly overload network capacity. Multicasting works like broadcast television — one to many.
Multicasting in the 700 MHZ band has the advantage of cheaper infrastructure; 1-3 transmitters could cover a large city. Qualcomm’s 700 MHz MediaFLO is proprietary but available for testing now.
HighWire promises two 700 MHz channels (channel 54 & 59) and the DVB-H standard, but Townsend hasn’t walked the talk (yet). Meanwhile, Modeo (at 1.7 GHz) and Mobile WiMAX (at 2.5 GHz) need to have expensive infrastructure built.
The market for long form mobile/portable video content greater than 30 minutes is currently in an experimental phase, and will likely remain at this stage for at least two years, reports In-Stat.
By 2008, however, InStat predicts there will be over 50 million portable media players in use worldwide. The portable/mobile video market will not likely cannibalize sales from the DVD and other traditional markets, but rather, supplement top-line growth says the research firm.
While Sprint may prefer a non-proprietary mobile tv standard (like DVB-H), a pragmatic approach might utilize MediaFLO since Verizon is also on board. Modeo might be a good match with the AWS band while Sprint and Clearwire might utilize the multicasting capability of Mobile WiMAX at a later date. And who knows what Townsend is actually up to — he doesn’t confide with DailyWireless. How about selling out to DirecTV, Charlie?
Related DailyWireless articles include; Sony’s WiFi Mylo, Microsoft Plans Wireless Music Player, Zing Go the Strings, WiFi Gremlin Music Player, Mobile Shopping, WiFi TV, MediaFLO Gets Satellite Backbone, Mobile TV: The Battle is On, New Mobile TV Flavor: TDtv, Verizon Goes with FLO, Global Mobile Television, T/W, Cingular: On Demand, DVB-H Headend Software, Intel On DVB-H, U.S. Gets MobileTV via DVB-H, The 700 Mhz Club, 700 Mhz Worth $28B, The 700 Mhz FCC Auction, Winner of the Triple Play, Satphones Localize, TiVo on a Stick, Clear Channel Podcasting, Multicasting the Olympics, WiMax Handsets, Laptop Television, Sirius Portable Radio, U.S. Broadband Policy?, XM Buys 2.3GHz, Sprint Gets Sirius, MPEG-4: Satellite, Cable & Wireless, Satellite TV on Cell Phone?, Sprint Bundles EchoStar, Satellite WiFi, DirecWay Modem Shares Access, Satphones Get Giant Antennas, U.S. Cellsats and FCC Approves Big Mobile Sat.
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