Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Telecom Italia will launch in June a DVB-H service using Samsung combined DVB-H receivers and cellphones and offering programming from Canale 5, Retequattro, Italia Uno, LA7, MTV Italia, plus Serie A TIM and Champions League football matches.
The DVB-H standard uses similar technology to the DVB-T (DB-terrestrial digital video technology and the same transmission frequencies.
A survey conducted last among participants in one of the world's first commercial DVB-H pilots in Helsinki last year "revealed the popularity and willingness to pay for mobile TV services, underlining the potential of this exciting new mobile application," according to Nokia.
Nokia said the survey found that 41 percent of pilot participants would be willing to purchase mobile TV services and half thought that a fixed monthly fee of 10 euros was a reasonable price to pay. Over half (58 percent) said that they believed broadcast mobile TV services would be popular.
Digital, Elisa, MTV, Channel Four Finland (Nelonen), Nokia, TeliaSonera Finland and YLE jointly conducted the pilot in Finland between March and June 2005 with 500 users accessing mobile TV using the Nokia 7710 smartphone and DVB-H technology. This is the same technology being piloted in Australia by The Bridge Network, with Telstra and Nokia.
The survey showed that, in general, users spent approximately 20 minutes a day watching mobile TV, although more active users watched between 30 to 40 minutes per session. Participants also watched mobile TV at different times than traditional TV peak hours.
However, a report on mobile video (not specifically DVB-H) in the US published by market researcher, In-Stat, in August 2005 concluded that mobile TV remained a "tough sell" for mobile operators. One in eight respondents indicated they were interested in purchasing mobile video services from their wireless carrier. However, two thirds of mobile phone subscribers were not yet ready for video services on their handsets, a number nearly unchanged from the previous year's survey, In-Stat said.
"Though mobile video does not yet appear to have widespread appeal, In-Stat believes that there is enough interest for it to generate some significant revenue for carriers in the near term," says David Chamberlain, In-Stat senior analyst. The number of subscribers purchasing mobile video content in the US would increase from an estimated 1.1 million in 2005 to over 30 million in 2010, In-Stat forecast.
David Bass
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