Telstra Tunes out of this Universe

Australian incumbent Telstra has reportedly cooled on the idea of launching a DVB-H network, after a 12-month trial with some other companies. Instead it’s looking at 3G-based video technology MBMS pushed by Ericsson, which is building out Telstra’s 3G network. The article is a bit confusing about which technology is better and/or cheaper, which I think accurately reflects the fact that nobody really knows. If DVB-H does launch it will require new spectrum, but the government has a couple of frequencies bands it plans to auction off for “new services”, so that shouldn’t be too much trouble.

Incidentally, a good place to check out the various mobile TV technologies is here.

Virgin Mobile to launch First Mobile TV in UK?

ZD Net are reporting that the UK's Virgin Mobile are preparing to launch the UK's first true mobile broadcast service this autumn, utilizing British Telecom's Movio product. The Movio product makes use of the same digital spectrum as digital radio, but enhances the signal to included support for a limited number of TV channels.

Previous iterations of mobile TV in the UK, such as services provided by Orange and Vodafone, have streamed the signal as Internet Protocol (IP) packets. This method uses a large amount of 3G bandwidth and the resulting expense forced operators to cap the number of hours that users could watch per month.

Streaming mobile TV over 3G networks can also lead to a degraded service if there are many active users in the cell.

Insiders have told ZDNet UK that Virgin's deal with BT includes a period of exclusivity of three months. The content providers for Movio will likely be announced within a month.