Mobile Phone Games World

“Mobile TV will become a multimedia experience with an emphasis on
personalisation, interactivity and user-generated content

So says the author of a London School of Economics report, commissioned by Nokia. Rather than watching past episodes of a favorite soap or drama series, or catching news snippets, Dr Shani Orgad sees mobile TV developing into a form of a personal YouTube.

Also envisaged is a 5 or 7 second advert to cater for the dip in dip out, or snacking nature of the Mobile TV format.

And it is on your mobile, at least if you have 3.

from 5 June 3 are launching a preview/review show for the world cup called Berlin or Bust.

Fronted by presenter Sam Delaney and with a host of footy-loving celebrities
on the guest list, from the Kaiser Chiefs to Ray Winstone, Berlin
or Bust will be a riotous magazine show, in contrast to the BBC and
ITV suited and booted studio commentary teams

In addition there will be a 4 minute highlight program available 5 minutes after each game, all free to 3 subscribers

The Hong Kong telephone company PCCW has started broadcasting TV to its 3G network

For trial users, this service covers the underground network (great place to reach a captive audience) but should spread to all of Hong Kong by the end of June.

There are 110,000 trial subscribers who can view a Cantonese-language Business News Channel and other news and sports content, with other entertainment content following.

Tech Digest report on Sky’s plans to offer live football and cricket via Vodaphone 3G, starting with League playoffs on 6 May 2006.

With 15 live football matches and three live Test matches, over 100 hours of live coverage is planned for the first month alone, with cricket coverage continung through to the final Test against Pakistan.

Following on the results of the Mobile TV pilot in the UK, Mokia have reported on trials in Spain and France, where 55% and 68% respectively said they would pay for services.

Given that this trial group was probably predisposed to the service (otherwise why would they participate in the trial), these figures seem low. Almost 75% of the participants in the Spanish trial said they would reccomend the service to friends.

The price point seems to besomewhere between €7 and €10 per month.

Many users in the trials watched mobile TV within their homes, with almost half of those taking part in the French and Spanish pilots claiming to mainly watch mobile TV at home.

That will possibly reassure employers, worried that not only will employees be texting, and calling on their paid time, but now they can watch TV as well.

The Nokia N92, together with their Mobile Broadcast Solution 3.0 will be available in the summer 2006, but with estimates from Informa that there will be 50.97 million DVB-H devices sold globally by 2010, there is still some way to go.

Studies show appetite for mobile phone TV but show that the technology still has a way to go. 16 TV channels were made available to 375 02 users who demoed the service on modified Nokia 7710 phones.

These tests were ‘overwhelmingly favourable’ but suggest that users would only be willing to £8 per month and not the £10 monthly charge Vodafone, 3 and orange are currently charging.

Different modes of delivery are also being explored, to get around the problem of using up bandwidth on the mobile networks, including a more traditional TV receiver and IP internet technology.

The O2 system, based on the Nokia DVB-H protocol, should not be expected any time soon however, as it uses a radio spectrum that will not be available until analogue TV is switched off - in 2012.