AT&T has delayed its broadcast mobile TV service launch to early 2008. Verizon Wireless launched it’s MediaFLO USA service under the V-Cast brand last March. Eight months ago AT&T committing to launching a similar service by the end of the year.
The carrier is now aiming to launch the MediaFLO-powered service in January or February, says RCR News.
“Because it’s brand new, we just want to make sure the product is going to be well received by our customers,” AT&T Mobility spokesman Mark Siegel told RCR Wireless News. “We just want to make sure we really have it nailed.”
“Maybe they’re trying to do something clever on the programming,” said Keith Mallinson, analyst at Wise Harbor. “When you’re a follower you’ve got to be at least as good as the other. They want to be able to come in and say it’s better somehow than what you can get from Verizon.”
“We are talking about something very, very slight,” AT&T’s Siegel said. “We and MediaFLO both feel we need to take the time to make sure the user experience is going to be optimal.”
MediaFLO uses their own UHF channel 55, subdividing the 6 MHz broadcast channel into 8 video channels (with 320×240 resolution) and several music channels (for additional fees). To get all the video services, Verizon charges $25/month. With lots of ads.
AT&T recently bought two UHF channels from Aloha Partners, on channel 54 and 59. Aloha Partners planned a competing multicast television service called HiWire, an incompatible DVB-H system which has been undergoing trials in Las Vegas.
When AT&T purchased the assets last month for some $2.5 billion, they said they were undecided whether to utilize the spectrum for multicast television or communications.
Meanwhile, MobiTV, which currently supplies AT&T and Sprint with streaming live video over their respective cellular broadband networks, announced a multi-year agreement with Sprint. Under the deal, Sprint and MobiTV will continue to work together to advance and extend the Sprint TV services including; Sprint TV, Sprint TV Xtra (formerly Sprint TV Live), Sprint TV en Vivo and Pivot to customers throughout the U.S.
MobiTV has some three million subscriptions for its services worldwide and has demonstrated a unicasting/multicasting technology with WiMAX.
As Clearwire and Sprint roll out their nationwide WiMAX networks, they will have a combined average of 90 MHz of spectrum in most of their markets, reports Telephony Magazine. WiMAX operators can deploy 10 MHz and even 20 MHz channels, compared to the 5 MHz channels allotted to UMTS or the 1.25 MHz channels of CDMA’s EV-DO.
Even Qualcomm’s MediaFLO is still limited to the 6 MHz of spectrum and quarter resolution video (320×240) — the size of a YouTube video.
Clearwire’s own internal analysis has found that 30 MHz of spectrum is enough for an operator to support the high video demands of normal Internet usage, but with 50 MHz of spectrum, that operator can layer on DVD-quality TV. With 70 MHz of spectrum, high-definition (HD) TV comes into play.
Forrester estimates online video advertising spending in the U.S. will reach $7.1 billion by 2012 while eMarketer’s July estimate guessed online video advertising would be worth $4.3 billion in 2011.
Related Mobile TV and Aloha Partners stories on DailyWireless include; Original Content on Sprint Mobile TV, Motorola Mobile TV Phone, The War on Mobile TV, ICO Wants Its Mobile TV - via DVB-SH, MobileTV: Modeo KOed by Crown, HiWire: 24 Mobile TV Channels, AT&T Buys 700MHz from Aloha, Google: We Got Trouble. . . In 700 Mhz, FCC Finalizes Rules on 700MHz: Limited Open Access, No Wholesale Requirement, Qualcomm Buys Flarion, Joint Commecial/Muni Proposed for 700Mhz, AT&T’s WiFi TV, Hiwire Moves on Mobile TV, Mobile TV War at NAB, Small Ops Squeezed Out of 700MHz?, HiWire: 24 Mobile TV Channels, Rural Broadband Gets A Plan, Verizon Makes its Move for Universal Service Fund, The Smartest Guy in the Room, 700 MHz On The Line?, 700 Mhz Worth $28B, 4G Auctions, RUS Funding for 700 MHz, The 700 Mhz Club, Channel 54: Where are You?
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