Verizon Brings CBS, ESPN, Fox Mobile, MTV and NBC to Mobile TV

Category Phone, internet, 3GSM | Permalink | 2. March 2007

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After ditching Apple’s iPhone two years ago and after bringing YouTube content on mobile phones, Verizon announced the debut of a new service that will bring TV shows on a phone near your ear

Two years ago, Verizon said no to Apple when the Cuppertino-based company got a little too greedy. Apple reportedly wanted a percentage of the monthly cell phone fees, decision making power over how and where iPhones could be sold, and control of the relationship with iPhone customers.

In a somewhat compensatory initiative, Verizon later brought YouTube’s content on the mobile phones of Verizon Wireless’ V CAST subscribers in the United States.

Now the same subscribers will also get TV content, with channels like CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go and Nickelodeon available at launch, and others to follow soon.

Verizon will offer V CAST Mobile TV for the moment to only 20 Midwestern and Western markets, charging between $15 and $25 a month for the initial lineup of programs from the first eight televisions.

Thus, Verizon becomes the first U.S. carrier to deliver a service that streams television to mobile phone using MediaFLO’s network, which has a capacity of 20 channels.

MediaFLO is Qualcomm’s new technology to broadcast data to portable devices such as cell phones and PDAs. Broadcast data will include audio and video streams, individual video and audio “clips”, as well as information such as stock market quotes, sports scores, and weather reports. The “F-L-O” in MediaFLO stands for Forward Link Only, meaning that the data transmission path is one-way, from the tower to the device. The MediaFLO system transmits data on a frequency separate from the frequencies used by current cellular networks. In the United States, the MediaFLO system will use frequency spectrum at approximately 700Mhz. It is a competitor to the Korean T-DMB standard and the European DVB-H standard.

Besides Verizon, AT&T Cingular also chose the MediaFLO technology, giving Qualcomm a leading position on the market (AT&T has around 61 million subscribers).

The MediaFLO-powered VCast Mobile TV will have picture quality similar to regular TV, and it will be displayed on Samsung SCH-u620 and the LG VX9400. SCH-u620’s unique design allows for communications options both vertically and horizontally with its full QWERTY keyboard and offers customers the ability to access Verizon Wireless’ multimedia services, including V CAST Music and Video, Get It Now and Mobile Web 2.0. Verizon’s spokesman Jeffrey Nelson actually said the picture quality of the new service will be roughly twice as clear as Verizon Wireless’s existing Vcast video service.

The company’s current online offer varies by package, V CAST Mobile TV Limited Package $13 per month, Basic for $15, and Select package which runs for $25 per month, the latter bring the most expensive package for the average customer.

The programming will be presented in “time block”/scheduled availability, consistent with familiar cable and satellite TV models, in both Eastern and Pacific Time zones. Additional channels are expected to be added to the lineup after launch.

Each of the networks will have a special made-for-cell-phones channel that will include hits such as CBS’ “CSI” and “Survivor,” NBC’s “Heroes,” Fox’s “24″ and “Prison Break,” as well as shows from Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart, USA Today reported.

“Television has revolutionized our culture,” Jeffrey Nelson told TechNewsWorld. “Wireless phones have become an integral part of our everyday lives, and V Cast Mobile TV represents the convergence of these two.”

While most of the programs will be identical to those shown by usual TV networks on regular TV, only some shows will be broadcast at the same time.

Verizon’s service will also run news clips and sports along with the other programs. Sprint and Cingular already offer news and sports television to cell phone subscribers.

Mobile video services first launched in the US in 2004, but only have about 7 million customers out of 232 million mobile subscriptions.

The major impediments in mobile TV’s future development are high fees for the content displayed, unsatisfying evolution of technology and the small screen of phones, which lowers the quality of images.

Still, viewership for network TV is in steady decline and “this shows that more people are going to be watching video,” said Digital Media analyst Phil Leigh. “They watched more video on PCs in 2006 with YouTube, and now in 2007, they’ll be watching on cell phones.”

A dedicated V CAST Mobile TV Web site will feature a customized program listing grid, a search feature to discover programs by keywords, content information and previews, and editorial and community features, as well as service information and support. The service also includes optional parental control features, consistent with existing multimedia standards, which will be accessible from the Options Menu to allow parents to set ratings for TV and movies.

Original News :
http://www.playfuls.com/news_06385_Verizon_Brings_CBS_ESPN_Fox_Mobile_MTV_and_NBC_to_Mobile_TV.html

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