Posted: 12th Feb, 2008 By: MarkJ
Orange and T-Mobile UK today announced they intend to jointly pilot a new mobile TV and multimedia broadcast service in London using NextWave Wireless UMTS (3G) MBMS based TDtv solution.
The pilot, scheduled for the second half of 2008, will be targeted at people living or working in West London and will demonstrate how the cost of providing high-quality, mass market mobile TV and multimedia broadcast services can be significantly reduced when mobile operators share widely-available unpaired 3G spectrum and a standards-based TDtv broadcast network.
During the six-month pilot
Orange and T-Mobile UK customers will use TDtv-enabled WCDMA handsets to receive up to 24 high-resolution television channels along with 10 digital radio stations at a far lower delivery cost per channel than previously possible. By providing more channels with higher picture quality that are fully integrated with existing multimedia services, the pilot service is expected to conclusively prove customer demand for mobile broadcast TV and radio services.
The channel line-up is expected to include many of the most popular broadcast and premium television channels in the UK. The licensed 3G spectrum which is unused at the moment and is a technology that can scale to support high simultaneous usage levels without any degradation in quality.