Orange and T-Mobile UK to Jointly Pilot New Mobile TV Broadcast Service

(Business News & Technology News, 14 Feb 2008)

Orange and T-Mobile UK intend to jointly pilot a new mobile TV and multimedia broadcast service in London using NextWave Wireless' UMTS 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. It will also showcase an innovative consortium model that can be easily replicated by mobile operators in more than 50 other countries where unpaired 3G spectrum is available.

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 lineup is expected to include many of the most popular broadcast and premium television channels in the UK.

Mobile network operators in Europe and the Asia Pacific who also own unpaired UMTS spectrum will be invited to participate in the pilot as observers. In addition, leading handset manufacturers who can make TDtv a standard feature in their devices will also be invited to observe the pilot. During the pilot, the companies intend to show that when mobile network operators, content providers and technology companies work together with MBMS technology, mobile TV costs can be significantly reduced.

The pilot will be powered by an end-to-end mobile broadcast solution developed by NextWave Wireless that will include TDtv network infrastructure based on the 3GPP UMTS TDD MBMS standard. NextWave will also provide a TDtv Device Integration Pack, a complete chipset and software package that enables handset vendors to quickly add TDtv to any multimedia enabled WCDMA handset. In addition, NextWave's Packet Video (PV) subsidiary will provide a complete Electronics Programming Guide that will integrate the TDtv service with the operators' existing 3G services. PacketVideo will also provide the pilot its new MediaFusion platform, a white-label, client-server software application that allows mobile operators to rapidly develop and launch on-device portals for rich media services, including music-on-demand, personalized streaming radio, live TV, and video-on-demand.

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