Well a lot of stuff went down at CES, and not the least of which was some Mobile video too….
ICO Global Communications and Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated a satellite-terrestrial network with two-way interactivity at CES. The ICO part apparently delivers “live television, interactive navigation and two-way communications to a wide variety of mobile and portable devices“.
Interestingly, ICO run the ICO G1, which is a commercial satellite, covering the entire US – and that’s supplemented by a terrestrial network for those dense urban areas where SATs are not all that good at covering. Not only did the network run at CES, but it’s in live trials in places like Las Vegas. AlcaLu’s part in this was developing mobile video tech based on DVB-SH, and also acting as SI (systems integrator).
Of course, the question that I would ask is how/if/when this distills to a commercial service for end-users – clearly a DVB-SH + terrestrial patchwork could prove a very good way to delivery consistent mobile video to users – but as we’ve seen in many other countries – mobile broadcast video hasn’t gained much traction.
Anyhow, we’ll see how this one plays out – for the moment it’s back to streaming or downloading over 3G ….
[Via: tmcnet.com]