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Sure, Verizon may already have the established mobile TV business, but I'm still not sure just how many users go beyond their VCAST Video offering. Maybe I'm wrong, but AT&T which has recently launched its mobile TV offering has scored a big deal to push the service forward. It's the exclusive Beijing Olympics coverage that will see them picking up the content through NBC Olympics 2Go.

Meanwhile, Verizon's offering will be limited to streaming video that will include daily highlights, breaking news, scores and results, and more.

Now, it's just a matter of finding enough LG Vu and Samsung Access owners interested for some real-time action…

[Via: mocoNews, Engadget]

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Orange has boosted it's Mobile TV packages in an effort to get more people using it. The MNO has added 3 Setanta Sports channels, and 'Channel 5' (the 5th terrestrial channel in the UK) to it's 'Max Pack' - along with dropping the price to £8.99/month.

Orange Max Pack currently features around 25 channels including content from Adult Swim, Channel 4, Disney, FHM, ITV1 and ITN. Sky News and Sports channels are available in a separate pack priced at £5 per month.

Orange hasn't released subs figures for it's Mobile TV service, but says that "it recorded 87% growth of total viewing hours on Mobile TV between November to January".

[Via: New Media Age]

Ericsson has partnered with Boomerang TV and Telecinco to launch F1 live on Mobile TV in Spain. Ericsson's HyC ( formerly a Spanish IPTV consultancy and systems integration company) will deploy the full service inlcuding the encoding, editing, and transmission, which will allow Boomerang TV and Telecinco to stream the F1 races to subs using live or repeated broadcast. Users will also be able to access personalised coverage, including downloads of selected points in the races.

[Via:  Telecom Paper]

We've mentioned Siano before here at IntoMobile, in respect of Mobile TV - and they are at it again withthe release of the their Mobile digital TV receiver chip, the SMS118X - this time aimed at China's domestic Mobile TV market. The chip is apparently due to be in handheld consumer apps by the time the Olympic games arrive, and will support the CMMB standard.

CMMB (or S-TIMI) is a technology developed in China and selected by the State Administration for Radio, Film & Television (SARFT) as the main platform for delivering TV services to mobile devices. The CMMB network will use both satellite and terrestrial signals, to obtain effective coverage both in densely populated cities, including indoor reception, as well as in sparsely populated rural areas.

The SMS118X supports reception and display of multiple TV channels in parallel. In addition, it includes two complete, distinct UHF and S-band paths, strong baseband processor for the challenging performance requirements and also all the common interfaces required for the consumer market — USB, SDIO, SPI, memory-mapped, transport stream and I2C. The device does not require any external active component such as memory, to support CMMB.

Sounds like quite a powerful little chip then - and this on the back of the release of their SMS1100, which is a multi-standard chip, capable of receiving ISDB-T TV signals (those used in Brazil and Japan), in addition to Siano's existing support portfolio of DVB-H, DVB-T, DAB, DAB-IP and T-DMB….

[Via: Tech-On]

Another Expansys exclusive it would seem, but the Slingbox Classic is now being sold for £59.95 on their UK site - a bit of a bargain for a piece of kit that has some very nice video streaming features.

I was responsible for testing this piece of kit for a certain UK operator, when they wanted to see how it could be used to output the video stream for an STB (Set-top box) to a mobile device (in this case it was a Windows Mobile device) - suffice to say after a bit of a fiddle setting it up, I got some nice quality streaming from my STB, out over my broadband connection, across the net, in to my mobile operator's 3G network, and to the device.

Probably the beauty of the system is not just being able to watch TV remotely, but also to be able to control the STB remotely - that's right, because there was a Slingbox client running on the Mobile device, it meant return signals could be sent back to Slingbox, which had it's own IR sender, to control the box!

In addition, because Slingbox have also created PC clients, it means that the Slingbox could effectively encode the output of the STB, and broadcast it to any client registered to that particular Sling unit.

Slingbox were first to mass-market with their Sling concept, which is another way of saying place-shifting your viewing - a good part of the trend towards Convergence no less…

Anyhoo, there is the "classic" box, which is now obviously slightly older - but also there are newer models which are slightly smaller, and have other features. So if you want to check out the classic go here, else go to Sling Media site here and check out the new models.

Alcatel Lucent and SpeedCast Ltd announced a tie-up to develop and commercialize a shared, hosted DVB-H platform for mobile TV operators in Asia.The companies are going to work together to leverage their tech, content delivery, and infrastructure solution to build a new Moby TV platform, that should deliver 20 TV channels for broadcast.

Offering this kind of managed service effectively cuts a large chunk of cost for OpCos and broadcasters, so this appears to be quite a smart move - targeting Asia, a market known for it's advanced Multimedia services, is also a neat step - now lets see what traction they gain and what services they roll out - after all, it's all about content baby!

[Via: Telecom Tiger]

The Unwired has got a really nice, detailed review on the Gigabyte t600 device, which was been mentioned on IntoMobile a few times now. Whilst not having UMTS or GPS (which we are coming to expect as standard on high-end smartphones now), it does have a fully functional DVB-T tuner….

DVB-T I hear you say? Yes, indeed. This means that it is capable of picking up unencrypted Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) signals. More than that, Gigabyte have been kind enough to include a software tuner utility, so that channels can be scanned and selected!

If this kind of device interests you, then go on over to The Unwired and have a read through - there are some great accompanying pics to go with the words too. I can't help but think that for all the momentum around DVB-H, that including a simple DVB-T tuner in handsets does get round a lot of the network/infrastructure/device/costs issues that DVB-H currently has - and for that reason it gets a big thumbs-up from me!

Now, if I can just get my contact at Gigabyte to send me one…!

[Via: The Unwired]

Following on from their testing in Singapore, more AlcaLu news….!

Alcatel-Lucent and Telstra have opened a "mobile TV handset testing service centre" in Melbourne, Australia. The facility has been developed to support Telstra's Mobile Foxtel TV service and will ensure that Alcatel-Lucent's MiTV application and the Mobile Foxtel service are compatible with and operate smoothly on the handsets that Telstra offers to customers.

Apparently the facility will test up to 100 3G handsets per year to ensure that the typical issues found with complex applications and services and met ahead of time. The testing will also include Streamezoo, who supply a client software app to AlcaLu for MiTV. Whereas as previously testing had been done overseas, it will now be handled locally, and over time the idea is that the service centre can provide testing for other service providers too.

So, a pretty logical step - the best tests are always those that approximate reality the most closely, and therefore where better to test than your own network….!

[Via: Telecom Paper]

Following straight on from the story about Nokia Siemens Networks powering DVB-H in Germany, here is one of the other big players, Alcatel-Lucent, powering a solution in Singapore…

M1 and MediaCorp have appointed Alcatel-Lucent as the supplier of the DVBH (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) platform for their joint mobile TV consumer trial in August. Alcatel-Lucent’s DVBH platform will support the Open Mobile Alliance BCast Smart Card Profile (OMA BCAST SCP) standard, which is being adopted globally. This is a SIM-based service protection system that allows subscribers of mobile TV to switch to other supported handsets without disrupting their service. The M1-MediaCorp mobile TV trial will be one of the first in the world to use this standard.

The trial is expected to last about 3 months, and on the handset side, Samsung will be weighing in with their considerable DVB-H expertise (they, along with LG, make up for a large percentage of deployed DVB-H devices!)

[Via: Cellular News]

Germany’s Mobile 3.0 is apparently now offering broadcast Mobile TV, having launched a test service based on a Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) solution.

The service, initially available in four cities – Hamburg, Hanover, Frankfurt and Munich – includes nine TV channels (ARD, ZDF, Deutschland 24, RTL, VOX, SAT 1, Pro 7, N-TV and N24) and three radio stations (bigMUSIC, MyFun Radio, and 90elf). It will help gather information on actual demand, expected consumption patterns, coverage and reception conditions in order to fine-tune the broadcasts and identify commercial services to be launched in the future, once Mobile 3.0 receives all the remaining licenses.

NSN is running the whole show during the test, utilising the DVB-H standard, and Nokia is providing the handsets.

[Via: Financial Mirror]