Watch TV on your phone

[ushma87star]

What is it? Live TV on mobile phones. “There is great potential for delivering live TV to a mobile phone. Indian subscribers have been quick to take up innovative mobile services and offering the latest in infotainment and live TV will certainly address this demand,” says Sanjay Mittal, Chief Executive of Bharti Telesoft, which is offering this service.

Who’s offering it? As of now, no one. But three different combinations are currently in various stages of deployment. While Nokia has begun a pilot service with Doordarshan, Reliance Communications has tied up with Sun TV and Bharti telesoft with Vimio, a mobile product solutions firm. Closed group trials are underway.

How much does it cost? Reliance will charge subscribers Rs 15 per session of five minutes, while a shorter clip of one – to – two minutes will cost Rs 7; in addition, subscribers will pay 10 paise per KB viewed on their mobiles. Rates for the DD – Nokia and Bharat – Vimio haven’t been announced.

What’s the catch? The service requires phones with video playback capability, which is limited in India. Also, Indian networks don’t yet offer enough bandwidth to watch TV for extended periods of time.

 

[raptor84]

I think given the mass consumer market in India the internet access has more growth potential than mobile TV. The percent of the consumers who are accessing the TV through mobiles is mostly concentrated in the major cities like delhi , mumbai, banglore. The 60-70% of the mobile consumers are looking to decent connectivity, cheaper rates and prices of handset with added functions like music or camera. Given the availability of mobile tv and the rates it is highly possible that it will have high end handset, high end consumer market.
The requirements for mobiles for increased battery life, added functions make it pricey than 3g internet. The Uk and germany have done similar experiements but failed to capture significant markets except Korea and USA.