AT&T Mobility has announced that it will offer MediaFLO mobile television service this May. AT&T originally planned to launch their mobile television service late last year.
AT&T’s service will include the same eight-channel lineup that’s on Verizon’s Vcast, which launched a year ago — CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC News 2Go, NBC 2Go and Nickelodeon.
AT&T phones that can use MediaFLO’s mobile television service include the Access from Samsung (above), and Vu from LG Electronics.
No details on what content may be featured on their two dedicated channels, but it is expected to include concerts from big-name artists. Indeed, Qualcomm hinted at such news in its filing with the FCC prior to the 700 MHz auction, says RCR Wireless News
Qualcomm’s mobile TV adoption is going slower than the company would like, CEO Paul Jacobs said this week. The service costs a pricey $15-25 a month and is only available in 59 cities across the country. Plus, subscribers have to upgrade to an even pricier handset that’s compatible with the service.
The number of ex-mobile TV users now outnumber mobile TV users in Germany, Spain, France and Italy by more than two to one, according to a survey conducted by M:Metrics, which compared mobile TV usage patterns in January 2007 with those during November 2007.
M:Metrics found the size of the mobile TV audience had increased by 36 percent, but the number of former mobile TV users had grown by a whopping 68 percent. “Price was the biggest turn-off for ex-users,” says Paul Goode, senior analyst with M:Metrics, “as over half of the ex-user group cited this as the main reason for finishing with the service.”
M:Metrics says a staggering 30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users. YouTube.com ranked as the No. 11 domain viewed by smartphones, according to M:Metrics measurements. The iPhone’s youtube videos are free, of course.
Meanwhile, television broadcasters are trying to “fix” the ATSC standard so it can do mobile video.
The Open Mobile Video Consortium was formed to help develop and test the ATSC-M/H standard. The consortium is now considering two possible standards: the MPH Mobile Pedestrian Handheld platform developed by LG Electronics and Harris, and the A-VSB platform crafted by Samsung and Rohde & Schwartz.
The goal of the NAB is to launch mobile digital television services by February 2009. Consumer trials of these new mobile digital television technologies began in February in San Francisco and Las Vegas. SES Americom provided the mobile broadcast network platform.
A recent study commissioned by the NAB states that mobile DTV could pull in $2 billion in annual revenue for broadcasters by 2012 if a standard is adopted quickly and equipment is swiftly put into consumer’s hands. But mobile DTV services will only succeed if one universal standard is adopted by 2009, according to the report.
Meanwhile, other mobile television standards have already solidified, including; DVB-H, DVB-SH, MediaFLO, TDtv and MXtv in addition to the services offered over the cellular network such as MobiTV and Sling Player Mobile.
TDtv and MXtv can multicast live to multiple users or unicast to individual users — depending on channel demand — an advantage that television broadcasters, MediaFLO and DVB-H don’t have. In addition MXtv does not require a special radio receiver chip — the video stream is picked up over the same WiMAX silicon.
Related Mobile television articles on DailyWireless include; What’s Dish Network Planning?, WiMAX TV from NextWave, BBCiPlayer on iPhonex, MediaFLO: In Trouble?, YouTube Mobilizes, Motorola Does DVB-H, Italy Testing DVB-SH Mobile TV, Software Defined Radio: DVB-H, too?, Original Content on Sprint Mobile TV, The War on Mobile TV, ICO Wants Its Mobile TV - via DVB-SH, MobileTV: Modeo KOed by Crown, Mobile/Handheld TV: Killer App?, Mobile TV War at NAB and Justin.tv Gets Lucky.
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