BT pulls the plug on mobile TV service

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bt-pulls-the-plug-on-mobile-tv-service-459215.html

• BT who provided the bandwith decided to end Virgin Mobile's Mobile TV service less than a year after it was launched, raising further questions about the appetite consumers have for watching television content on the small screen.
• BT, had expected to sign up other mobile phone companies to launch similar products.
• In the past, delivering TV content to mobile phones was seen as a key growth driver for operators but a lack of appropriate handsets and a divergence over what system is best for delivering TV on to mobile phones has hampered progress in deploying the service.
• Operators such as 3, Vodafone and Orange launched a limited service available to subscribtion customers to their handsets over the3G network.
• Virgin launched its TV service spending £2.5m on advertising that featured former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson. The service was based on a standard that utilised digital radio spectrum, meaning only a limited number of channels could be offered to consumers.
• It was also only available to consumers with the "Lobster" 'phone, as this is the only one they produced with the capability, but it proved unsucessful.
• O2 and Nokia backed a rival delivery method called DVB-H that can carry up to 16 channels and last week the European Commission backed that standard. A third standard, developed by Qualcomm, has proved more popular with US mobile phone companies and is being tested by BSkyB.
• Bruce Renny, a spokesman for the free mobile TV provider ROK Entertainment, said that consumers do not want to pay a subscription to receive TV content they can get for free at home. "Simply broadcasting linear TV to mobiles is not the answer," he said.