Zain Launches Mobile TV for iPhone Users

Zain Kuweit has announced that iPhone users can now access Mobile TV services on their devices.

Through this service, which was already available to other 3G-mobile phone users, prepaid & postpaid customers can view live selected television channels on their handsets.

According to Zain, these TV channels include Al-Watan, Al-Watan Plus, Al-Rai, Kuwait Sports Channel, Gulf, and Rotana Channel collection.

Earlier this month, Zain announced its Group consolidated financial results for the first nine months, ending 30 September 2010. For the Jan-Sept. period, the Zain Group generated consolidated revenues of KWD 1.01 billion (US$ 3.5 billion), an increase of 8.4% compared to the same period of 2009. The company’s consolidated EBITDA reached KWD 448 million (US$ 1.55 billion) reflecting an EBITDA margin of 44% with EBIT reaching KWD 324 million (US$ 1.12 billion). Net Income soared 411% to reach KWD 976 million (US$ 3.37 billion).

Vietnam: VNPT To Launch Mobile TV

VNPT, Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group, is planning to extend its MyTV IPTV service to mobile phone by 2011. VNPT’s IPTV service was launched in September 2009 initially in Hanoi. MyTV provides multi services such as TV Broadcasting, Audio Channel, Time-Shift TV as well as on demand services like Video on Demand, Music on Demand, TV on Demand, Game, Karaoke… etc. The service offers over 60 domestic and international channels and has attracted more than 150,000 subscribers which is the double of its original expectations according to VNPT.

Vodafone Portugal launches three-screen VoD

After it launched a new VOD service for its IPTV customers in February, Vodafone Portugal has now extended its offer to mobile users.

Vodafone Portugal Subcribers will now be able to rent films and TV series from a library of 1,000 titles and watch them across all three screens – TV, PC and mobile.

The company had close to 450,000 VoD enabled customers in Portugal as of June 2010, according to Dataxis Intelligence’s market research service.

Qualcomm to shut down FLO TV operations

According to paidContent, Qualcomm will shut down its FLO TV operations by the end of the year. AT&T and Verizon are concerned by this decision, as Qualcomm offered this service to current customers. In June, Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, said that the copany planned to sell or spin off MediaFlo but declared that there are no plans to shut down the technology.

This decision won’t be a total loss, the spectrum itself worth almost $2 billion according to Jacobs. Qualcomm wants to focus on its spectrum to distribute other kind of content. Netflix and Hulu are already offering video content for mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone and other smartphones.

Netflix launches mobile service

Netflix today announced the availability of its free Netflix App for iPhone and iPod touch, allowing Netflix members on plans starting at just $8.99 a month to instantly watch TV episodes and movies streamed to their iPhone or iPod touch at no additional cost.

“Apple has changed the game for mobile devices,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder and chief executive officer. “We’re excited that our members can now carry Netflix around in their pockets and instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from Netflix right to their iPhone or iPod touch.”

Verizon Plans to Let Customers Watch Live TV on IPads

Verizon Communications Inc., the U.S. phone company, is planning to allow subscribers to its FiOS TV service watch live shows on Apple Inc.’s iPad.

Verizon will give FiOS customers access to stored pictures, music and downloaded movies on up to five devices, including personal computers, TVs and phones. The service will be available for no extra charge.

While the live-TV technology is ready, Verizon is in talks with the companies that own the shows, including CNN and HBO parent Time Warner Inc., about the service that will stream the programs to tablets.

The service will at first work on Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerrys and handsets running Google Inc.’s Android software or Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile, as well as on PCs and Macintosh computers and IPhone after Apple approves its submission to the App Store.

3 Italia Partners with On Demand Group for Mobile TV Subscription VOD

Mobile operator 3 Italia has launched Italy’s first mobile TV subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service called ‘TV: On Demand’ in partnership with Seachange’s On Demand Group, giving subscribers on-demand access to entire episodes of hit TV shows.

TV: On Demand will present a mobile viewing experience that correlates to television and broadband PC viewing.  It will enable subscribers to extend their enjoyment of complete programs while they’re on the go, away from their TV and broadband connections.

Initial content details of the service will be released later.

On Demand Group today supplies telco, cable and mobile operators with movies, programs and promotions in English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Turkish and Arabic.

Multichoice and Vodacom launch DStv on mobile phones service

In late 2005, Vodacom launched its first Mobile TV entertainment service on the Vodafone live! platform.  This service was only available to 3G cellphone users, and offered 22 channels for R59 per month.

Earlier this year, Vodacom announced that its Vodafone live! Mobile TV service will be discontinued and replaced with a new Mobile TV service.

MultiChoice has now announced the availability of its DStv MOBILE, which essentially replaces the Vodacom offering.  The new service is once again streamed from the Vodafone live! platform, and again only available to 3G handset owners.  A new platform has been developed for the new Vodafone live! DStv Mobile media streaming service, but the service has very similar characteristics and pricing to the previous offering.

The new DStv Mobile service will offer subscribers 11 DStv channels for R59 per month or R19 per week while no additional data charges apply.  The Mobile DStv channels are SuperSport Blitz, SuperSport Live, Channel O, Trace, CNNi, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Africa Magic, E Entertainment, Weather 24 and DStv Events.

Subscribers also have access to a top selection of videos to watch from popular DStv channels such as M-Net, kykNET and VUZU.

Rubberduck and Entel PCS carry out mobile TV over LTE tests in Chile

Rubberduck, a subsidiary of Aspiro AB and provider of streaming mobile TV services, has confirmed that it had partnered with Entel PCS to trial high speed mobile TV over LTE in Chile. The new project is expected to boost the adoption of mobile TV. However, more robust service infrastructure will be needed to achieve this goal.

Gunnar Sælleg, CEO of Aspiro commented on the agreement: “We strongly believe that for mobile TV services to be successful, there are a number of elements in the eco-system that need to be in place – compelling affordable content, better handsets, and an easy to use application. Ultimately, LTE networks will provide the pathway for truly mass market adoption of mobile TV”.

Rubberduck CEO Erling Paulsen added: “To us it is clear that the future of mobile TV is linked with the future of mobile networks, not of broadcast networks. TV technologies have been unable to show the way for this industry, mainly because the technical propositions have hidden costs and other barriers to entry that are prohibitive for the business case.  We therefore believe mobile network operators and broadcasters will be better served investing in high-capacity overlay networks, such as LTE. That’s the way to boost long-term take up of mobile TV”.

Chilean mobile operator, Entel PCS, had performed LTE tests at Universidad de Chile earlier this year where download speeds reached 50Mbps using 20 MHz (10 MHz for the uplink and 10 MHz for the downlink).

NTT and KDDI competing for the single next generation mobile broadcast licence in Japan

Two Japanese cellcos, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI are reportedly competing for a single next generation mobile broadcast licence to be awarded by the government in July 2010. The permit will enable the winner to broadcast a variety of content such as movies, sports coverage and electronic books while currently existing services allow on transmitting TV shows on mobile devices.

For this purpose both NTT and KDDI have established companies with the former, setting up Multimedia Broadcasting in partnership with Fuji Television Network and others to operate ISDB-Tmm (integrated services digital broadcasting-terrestrial mobile multimedia) technology for the next-generation service. As for the latter (KDDI), it recently established an 82% owned venture -together with TV Asahi Corp and four other firms holding the remainder-; that will focus on content distribution or the next-generation service based on the Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technology.

With only the two groups expected to apply, the licence winner will need to invest heavily in building the required infrastructure for service delivery at a time when many question the viability of such a service because of the competition with 3G and beyond mobile broadband technologies.