dailywireless.org » Narrowcasting TV to Commuters

Narrowcasting TV to Commuters

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is developing a pilot project to broadcast CNN at Long Island Rail Road or subway stations. The service should be available as early as next year.

CNN has agreed to outfit six stations systemwide with the screens, and to foot the bill, over the next 12 to 18 months. It’s similar to a setup they use in many airports, said MTA Deputy Director Linda Kleinbaum.

“At the end of the pilot, based on the results, we would hope we’d be able to move it systemwide and create a revenue stream,” she said. “It would be a transit news service, much like in the airports, but we would also have the ability in an emergency to override and put emergency information out, and every so often we would have time on the screens to put out system information.”

Meanwhile, Long Island’s wireless Internet project, a $150-million Wi-Fi system that hoped to cover 750 of the Island’s 1,200 square miles without a dollar of taxpayer funds may be dead, reports Newsday. Nassau and Suffolk counties have refused to invest in the project or consider anchor tenancy, though Suffolk spent $60,000 to write the project’s initial request for proposals. E-Path Communications, the service provider, believes it should pay $9.68 per year in rent for each pole to which it attaches its equipment, while the utility is insisting on $50.

In related news, Taiwan will deploy NextWave’s mobile television platform in Taipei using NextWave Wireless technology.

NextWave’s MXTV incorporates both broadcast and multicast TV into standard WiMAX base stations. It can operate in a one-to-one unicast mode or “broadcast” to many on a single channel. NextWave has been gaining industry support for the technology with partnerships with Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent, but the trial, using WiMAX operator Global Mobile is the first to launch.

MXTV can broadcast mobile video to thousands on one WiMAX channel. Clearwire, has 120 Mhz to burn in major markets, with the capacity to narrowcast to bus or rail commuters if they so desire.

Craig McCaw’s ICO (Wikipedia) also has a national mobile television strategy. Their multimedia service known as ICO Mobile Interactive Media (ICO mim), combines nationwide coverage via satellite with interactive navigation, enhanced roadside assistance and 10-15 channels of premium television for back-seat video in cars. ICO and Clearwire will conduct a mobile video trial in Raleigh, North Carolina, this year using DVB-SH, a mobile TV standard. It expects to launch commercial service in 2009.

MediaFLO, by contrast, is stuck with 6 MHz and can only broadcast locally — mostly from central broadcast towers. Their mobile tv service is limited to a handful of fixed channels.

In other news, NextWave has signed agreements with four parties to sell a portion of its AWS license portfolio in the United States, representing 63% of its total AWS MHz-pops, for a total of $150.1 million. T-Mobile bought the bulk of Nextwave’s AWS spectrum.

In its deal with Nextwave, T-Mobile USA picked up a 20 megahertz license covering Pittsburgh; a 20-megahertz license covering Sacramento, Calif.; a 10 megahertz license covering New Orleans; and a 10 megahertz license covering Little Rock, Ark.