Mobile DTV Coming ‘This Year’ to MetroPCS
MetroPCS will begin offering the Mobile Content Venture’s Dyle mobile DTV service to customers this year on a new Samsung 4G LTE smartphone, the companies said Wednesday. The deal makes MetroPCS the first cellular carrier partner for the TV broadcasters’ fledgling mobile DTV service. Each of MetroPCS’s 14 major markets includes at least one MCV member station that will be broadcasting mobile DTV services this year, the MCV said. And some markets, such as Los Angeles, will have mobile DTV programming from as many as six stations, said Erik Moreno, co-general manager of the MCV. “We will be encouraging additional broadcasters to light up their stations in that core MetroPCS footprint,” he said.
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MetroPCS has nearly 6,000 distribution points within its footprint that will begin promoting the new service this year, said Stephen Jemente, MetroPCS product manager for digital media and location-based services. All the companies involved will work on promoting the product, but “Metro does have the [retail] doors to be able to share that message within those major markets,” he said.
The Samsung Android-based smartphone will come pre-loaded with a Dyle app that will let customers watch Mobile DTV service, the companies said. The first time the app is opened, customers will be prompted to register before they can begin watching live TV, said Salil Dalvi, a co-general manager of the MCV. Initially, the app will include a program guide and a broadcast signal meter, he said. “You can envision a future where the app becomes much more social,” he said saying new features, including DVR functionality are on “our radar screen for future versions."
Live mobile TV will provide a complimentary service to MetroPCS’s suite of digital media products, Jemente said. “We have measured consumer habits today, and a major part of that is consumer digital media and video,” he said. He said MetroPCS’s VOD offerings from programmers such as BET and Univision have been popular. “We've closely tracked the patterns of usage and see we're just missing a complimentary [live] service that hasn’t been available to date,” he said. MetroPCS didn’t carry Qualcomm’s failed MediaFLO service, he said.
Meanwhile, other broadcasters are preparing mobile DTV announcements ahead of CES next week. The Mobile 500 Alliance will be demonstrating an end-to-end system for monetizing mobile DTV, said John Lawson, its executive director. The system will include dongles made by Israel’s Siano for Apple iOS devices, he said. “We'll be there with a Mobile 500 app,” he said. And the alliance is also working with Opanga on pushing VOD content to mobile DTV devices during non-peak times, he said.
The alliance spent most of the spring and summer developing a business plan and soliciting equity investments, Lawson said. “A lot of the feedback we got was Mobile DTV could be large, but there was concern about MediaFLO not succeeding, and the suggestion that we needed to operationalize what we were talking about,” he said. “We have our business plan and we think it’s a good one, but we are really going to start from the bottom up and create an end-to-end product we will make available to Mobile 500 member broadcasters, which we think can be replicated by stations across the country.” A beta trial of the system is set for Seattle this year, he said.
Meanwhile, mobile DTV receiver chip developer Siano Wednesday launched its RallyTV broadcast platform designed to deliver in-vehicle digital programming. Many of the details about the service, including availability, content and hardware, weren’t available because Siano executives were traveling to the U.S. from Israel for next week’s CES, a spokeswoman said. But RallyTV will deliver live TV broadcasts to smartphones, tablets and notebook PCs, the company said. Siano will market the service to automakers and transportation service providers, including train and bus companies, the company said. “This system is perfectly compatible with any and all smartphones, tablets and laptops on the market and eliminates the need for special hardware or software on the terminal side. Unlike 3G video streaming,” Siano CEO Alon Ironi said in a statement.
RallyTV will be capable of serving large numbers of end-users on public transportation, such as trains and buses, and smaller groups in private vehicles. Users will connect to RallyTV by linking to its wireless network inside a vehicle and opening a browser on a portable device, Siano said. The browser is redirected to the RallyTV Web application that lists available channels and features. RallyTV will offer additional services to content providers, including advertising and video-on-demand.
It wasn’t clear whether RallyTV will be part of a test Mobile 500 is said to be planning to conduct in the Seattle area in Q1. Those participating in the trial will get access to broadcasts by attaching an adapter containing a Siano receiver chip to a mobile device, industry officials said. Users will be able to watch local programming without paying for a wireless data plan, industry officials said.