NTL And O2 Start First Mobile TV Trials
NTL Broadcast and O2 will be testing the televisual capabilities of the next generation of mobile phones, with BSkyB, Chart TV Show, Discovery Networks Europe, Shorts International and Turner Broadcasting among the first broadcasters to provide 16 television channels to customers with Nokia’s new 7710 handset.
The six month trial will take part in the Oxford area and look at how people choose to catch up on their favourite television shows, watch the latest music videos and keep up to date with news and sport when on the move.
The trial will use the DVB-H broadcast transmission standard, which has been specially designed for handheld reception, and will allow an efficient ‘one-to-many’ method of delivering television content, complementing one-to-one video streaming which is already possible via GPRS and 3G networks.
Commenting on the tests, Terry Howard, head of media business at NTL Broadcast said: “We have had overwhelming interest in involvement from across the broadcast and media sector. We know from our own research that well over half of UK mobile users are very interested in watching their favourite TV programmes on their mobiles.”
NTL intend to share findings from the trial with broadcasters, mobile operators and Ofcom about the consumer appeal of the service, if a commercial service is to be launched in the UK Ofcom will need to license spectrum.
Dave Williams, O2’s chief technology officer added: “We see this trial as a key way to understand how to provide mobile users with a useful and entertaining service whilst out and about. We believe that mobile broadcast TV has the potential to sit along our existing customer services based on GPRS and 3G mobile networks.
“Mobile broadcast TV aims to be a cost effective method for transmitting high quality consent from one source to multiple customers whereas 3G is ideal for providing bespoke content to users.”
Mark Selby, vice president of music and rich media business programmes at Nokia added: “Nokia research in this area reveals the strong consumer interest in mobile TV services and, with successful trials conducted elsewhere in the world, we expect mobile TV to be a hugely popular application, driving the mobile entertainment market.”
Reports earlier this week suggested ntl and Telewest Global were preparing a £5.5 billion merger, creating a more unified rival to BSkyB’s dominant digital satellite service, with ntl employing Goldman Sachs to advise on the planned merger (see Cable Giants Mull Merger To Tackle Sky).
NTL: 01256 752000 www.ntl.com