Crown Castle to Offer Cellphone TV in Top 30 U.S. Markets
Wireless tower operator Crown Castle said Wed. it will offer mobile TV to cellphones in the top 30 U.S. markets. The $500 million investment will use a national license for 1.670 GHz spectrum it bought during a 2003 FCC auction. Crown Castle also said it will rename its Mobile Media unit Modeo. The first markets, N.Y.C. and Pittsburgh, are slated to come online this year.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Crown Castle doesn’t need FCC approval for its venture, a spokesman said: “We have a license that permits us to transit at that frequency and won’t require any more clearances.” The spectrum -- the old L block -- is also unencumbered and need not be cleared before roll out.
The Houston-based operator is showing the technology this week at CES in Las Vegas, in tandem with Nokia, Motorola and other device makers. Crown Castle is competing directly with Qualcomm, which plans to build out its MediaFlo network at a cost of $800 million. Crown Castle already tested its digital video broadcast-handheld (DVB-H) network in Pittsburgh.
Crown Castle needs 50-70 sites per market for antennas, the spokesman said. About 40% likely will go onto towers Crown Castle already owns, with the rest colocated on other towers or placed on roofs. Site acquisition and equipment purchases are the 2 main expenses in Crown Castle’s pending build out, a spokesman said.
Modeo will offer a “compelling package of live video and audio channels and be the world’s first mobile broadcast network to support podcasting,” it said. Users will be able to download dozens of video podcasts and hundreds of audio podcasts each week, at a monthly cost of $15-$20.
The Crown Castle move is in line with the firm’s earlier proposals, RBC Capital analyst Jonathan Atkin told us. “It’s a service that doesn’t exist today,” he said: “The only dedicated one-way network is in Korea, and it’s satellite based. Nothing of this kind has been made available so far, but given that Qualcomm is pursuing a very similar type of infrastructure, that validates what Crown Castle is trying to do.”
Analyst Jeff Kagan said: “We are still very early in the wireless TV wars, but it sure is getting interesting.” Kagan said the service’s success is uncertain. “This will be a competitor to a number of other services already in the marketplace during the last year or two,” he said. “Its success is dependent on a number of issues including quality, ease of use, and price. There is also the issue of getting the message to the marketplace.”
“Modeo is designed to deliver a superior mobile video experience so that consumers can enjoy shows wherever and whenever they choose,” said Modeo Pres. Michael Schueppert. The promo campaign, “Modeo: For the love of TV,” stresses the firm’s focus on “providing a fun and easy-to-use service that delivers popular news, sports, music and entertainment to a broad range of mobile devices including cell phones, laptops, portable media players, personal digital assistants and more,” he said.