Mobile TV Gets Pat on the Back

Sharon Armbrust | February 28, 2007, 07:42 AM

Mobile TV and content distributor MobiTV got a big plug in the WSJ on 2/28, with Katherine Boehret writing in the Mossberg Solution column about her tests of MobiTV on Cingular and Sprint networks with various phones. She liked what she saw compared to the last time she tried in 2004 because the steady improvements in networks and devices now makes watching TV in the palm of your hand viable and even enjoyable, Boehret said.

The timing of the Journal’s compliment is fortuitous because the players on the ground in mobile TV in the U.S. may now be ready for the scrutiny.. MobiTV just passed the two mil. sub mark, doubling its base in a year. MediaFlo is launching its mobile broadcast service on Verizon (reportedly sometime in March) and Cingular, content owners and aggregators like MobiTV are sharply focused on tailoring and improving their mobile video menus, plus the carriers are sort of making it easier to find what they and their partners have to offer. ALLTEL, for example, just introduced something called CellTop, a Brew platform-based technology which allows subscribers to quickly access and manage their preferred applications on the phone via a personalized array of graphical navigation short-cuts. Aimed at increasing discovery, ease of use and ultimately usage, CellTop is pre-installed on phones and is free.

What price points and/or combination of price/ad support will attract steady viewers has not yet been proven out, but delivery of good product and a quality viewing experience seems to be coming into focus. And best of all, with customers regularly changing out phones for the next upgrade every 18 months or so, mobile TV can get judged--good or bad-- on its own merits rather than on the limitations of network and device environment.