Mercedes has decided that it’s going to do a Mobile TV solution for the Italian car market – the Mercedes Classe B Special Edition, of which there are only going to be 500, is being sold in collaboration with Sky Italia, and Garmin (the Sat Nav manufacturer).
So on board the car is a Garmin Nuvi 900 T GPS receiver, enabled with DVB-H. This makes it able to receive 14 Sky Mobile TV channels, as well as a bunch of others. Apparently those that get the car before March 31, will also get a free one-year subscription to Sky Italia, at home AND on-board the the car!! As a retro-fit, the kit is also going to be sold for about 700 Euros – yowzer.
Overall it’s a nice idea – my view is that car manufacturers need to come up-to-date with their Mobile tech, and it seems here that Mercedes are going bleeding edge with it. Italy is one of the few live, and successful DVB-H markets, so to leverage inside of a popular brand is a nice move. Hopefully the car has Bluetooth integrated too, which is a major bugbear of mine in that most manufacturers for some reason don’t include something that’s only £100 to retro-fit! Come on now!
[Via: Broadband TV News]