AT&T Launching Mobile TV May 4th

Engadget is reporting that AT&T will be launching their Mobile TV service on May 4th. The article features a few details and a video of the tech in action. "You'll find Mobile TV running on LG's new $300 (2-year, after $100 rebate) Vu, one of just two Mobile TV compatible handsets launching on AT&T May 4th — the other being the $200 (2-year, after $100 rebate) Samsung Access. Performance looks reasonably snappy when scrolling through the channel guide although some of the exclusive PIX and CNN Mobile Live content is not yet available. S'ok, AT&T has three more days to throw the big blue switch on the broadcast TV service which includes a $15/month unlimited Mobile TV access plan."

Light on details

[jrumney]

TFA is a bit light on details. Is this a true broadcast system, or 3G bandwidth sucking streaming out to individual handsets like the UK networks have rolled out? If it's true broadcast, have they adopted DVB-T, Korea's T-DMB, Japan's 1-seg, or done the American thing and gone their own incompatible way?

Re:

[jrumney]

I meant DVB-H (H for handheld, T for terrestrial), but I see TFA mentions MediaFLO, which it turns out is a proprietary Qualcomm broadcast technology not just the name of the front end software as I'd assumed.

Re:

[deetsay]

I meant DVB-H (H for handheld, T for terrestrial), but I see TFA mentions MediaFLO, which it turns out is a proprietary Qualcomm broadcast technology not just the name of the front end software as I'd assumed.

S'ok.

Re:

[y00st]

Engadget article says it is mediaFLO [mediaflo.com]. It is a broadcast technique developed by Qualcomm.

Re:

[jrumney]

Since the US is not leading the field, like Japan and Korea, I'd expect them to leverage the work done by the DVB consortium to develop a global handheld digital TV standard. At the very least as market followers, they could have gone with the existing Korean system (which has support from China) or maybe the Japanese system (the Japanese similarly take the "do own own thing" approach, but at least they have the excuse that they're deploying before the standards are ready). Going with a single vendor propri

Wow!! I can't wait!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow!! I can't wait to not need this!!

When are the Vu's supposed to be released, so I can hurry up and not buy one? (IDK, I didn't RTFA.)

Seriously, how many people really need/want access to TV 24 hours a day? Like my phone/shitty-camera/shitty-mp3 player/shitty-video recorder/shitty-internet access device, I get the impression this is yet another novelty for me to not use.

Granted, the camera aspect come in handy once every 3-4 months, but you can't take serious photos with it. And I have used the mp3 pl

Hear, hear!

[professorguy]

Funny AND so so true. Someone with mod points please start lavishing.

"I can't wait to not need this!" is my new favorite quotation. Let's make t-shirts (another thing no one is waiting for)....

Re:

[Lumpy]

I've seen the 3g sucking systems. and I bought a Slingbox. It works better to my Blackjack than any of their services for "mobile" TV. plus I have control of it unlike their systems.

Honestly on my 2" screen 180X120 ad 15fps is more than enough resolution.

ATT is a bad corporate citizen - and they suck too

[gregopad39]

I've had my fill of poor ATT service, inept customer service reps and nazi contracts.
I cannot wait for my contract to end.

Everyone with ATT needs to give them the boot, the finger and their old phones.

I think any cellular company is better than this whore.

Re:ATT is a bad corporate citizen - and they suck

[Douglas Goodall]

I recently tried out an AT&T/Cingular 3G adapter (usb) for my father at the hospital and couldn't get enough signal to do email, much less moving video. If they can't get their 3G data network running well enough for the normal wireless customers, how do they expect to satisfy loads of video watchers. Aren't they selling out there business customers who have been suffering and waiting for things to get better. Aren't they also selling out Apple who will have to suffer also due to their exclusive iPhone

Curious

[Auckerman]

How often do you stare at your phone? As in look at your phone. I'm sure there's some market for this, but I'm not sure who. Web browsers (quick looking up movie times), email (crackberry, et al.),MP3 players (iPhone), I can understand putting those in a phone. TV? A phone is more of a passive attachment. One you are aware of, but don't have an absolute need to touch for an hour straight without using it as a phone. If you're going to send email or web browse for an hour, you're going to do it from a

Commuters.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

1) Commuters drag their phone with them everywhere.

2) Commuters stuck on public transport for over three hours a day crave portable entertainment.

3) Sell Commuters entertainment they can watch on a device they're already carrying.

4) Who cares if we profit from this? We're a monopoly. We'll find another way to screw consumers if this fails.

Re:

[DMoylan]

> 1) Commuters drag their phone with them everywhere.

damn right. i don't leave home without my nokia e61i.

> 2) Commuters stuck on public transport for over three hours a day crave portable entertainment.

4 hours a day myself. i also drag my ipod 150gb. this is loaded with about 40 movies, umpteen hours of music and 3-4 tv series such as fr. ted, it crowd, drew carey.

> 3) Sell Commuters entertainment they can watch on a device they're already carrying.

good idea. however as a commuter you are movi

Re:

[obarel]

For point 3, we're talking about broadcast (like television) so the bandwidth is of no concern to the user who will be charged per programme rather than per MB.

The differences are:
* A huge system to make sure that you pay for what you see (the exact opposite of Freeview)
* More resilient in terms of Doppler effect and general noise (a lot of error-corrections in software and hardware)
* Smaller size videos (probably 320x240 instead of 720x576 or more)
* Good quality (H.264 and AAC instead of MPEG-2)
* Ability t

Re:

[ubrgeek]

5) Holding your wife's purse, waiting for her to finish shopping.

/me is so glad my wife doesn't read /. ;)

Re:

[peragrin]

1) i do drag my phone everywhere
2)15 minutes in the middle of a snow storm to get to work.
3) I would rather watch the road with the other 70% of americans, as most of us live in area's with mediocore public transportation.
4) why can't they simply receive traditional TV broadcasts? I wouldn't mind listening to ABC morning news. You can pick the signals up in every city already. this just has the extra cable packages.

Re:

[ChinggisK]

they are shooting for the "cool, I can watch TV" crowd who use it for a month,

Well, that was my initial reaction, so I guess it works. You just had to go and spoil it... fiend!

Yawn

[Nursie]

This stuff has been out for a couple of years in the UK.

Nobody actually cares though. I have yet to see anyone bother to actually use it.

Re:

[*weasel]

This service strikes me as the networks and media companies desperately trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle.

Having enjoyed vidcasts, tivo recordings and dvd rips on my n800 for some months, I've seen the way forward.

And it certainly doesn't involve allowing broadcasters deciding the depth and breadth of available content, scheduling, monthly fees or further suffering proprietary transmission or encoding technologies.

I'll get whatever video I want, from wherever I care to find it and watch it when

Re:

[jrumney]

The UK isn't getting mobile TV until 2012, when the bandwidth currently used for analogue TV becomes available nationwide. The networks have various video on demand services, but that isn't the same as broadcast mobile TV.

Is it really needed?

[fork_daemon]

Here in the UK we have this feature on our 3g handsets, but i wonder who really uses it?

I had the option of 1 month free TV, but i did not opt for it. I do not see a necessity to stare at a small Mobile Screen just to watch live tv or a live Football match. Would i even be able to read the scores on such a small display?

This feature is just a display of "We are putting this feature in, just because we can."

Re:

[Zelos]

I watch a fair bit of video on mobile devices while travelling (trains/flying). My girlfriend watches a lot on her iPod touch, mostly TV comedy series (Flight of the Conchords, Gavin and Stacey etc.) Provided you have good eyesight, most video is perfectly watchable on a ~3" screen.

That's all ripped to MP4 from DVD though, I'm not sure about broadcast TV to mobiles.

Re:

[tonsofpcs]

I have a 2" black and white rear-projection TV that runs on 4 AA cells. 3" color should be fine.

Re:

[DiSKiLLeR]

Its been here in australia for years and years too.

I don't know anyone who uses it either.

Watching TV on your phone is just one of the stupidest things i've ever heard of...

Not new

[DramaGeek]

MediaFlo, the company doing this or AT&T, has been doing this for Verizon since March last year. See here: http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/03/pr2007-03-27a.html [vzw.com] I read somewhere that it uses TV spectrum, channel 55 if I remember correctly.

Re:

[benjymous]

Something similar's been available for two or three years in the UK.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/31/vodafone_sky/ [theregister.co.uk]

Nobody used it, though

Re:

[fistfullast33l]

MediaFlo, the company doing this or AT&T, has been doing this for Verizon since March last year

True, however this is Slashdot and AT&T is the only provider with the iPhone, so obviously AT&T are the only ones allowed to innovate in the US.

Also, I have the LG Voyager from Verizon that is Mobile TV enabled - it's not worth the money. $15 a month for TV on the go? I don't even use the VCAST service to download videos on the go. Why would I want to watch TV? Plus it has this really stupid antenn

Plus additional costs

[Scutter]

AT&T has three more days to throw the big blue switch on the broadcast TV service which includes a $15/month unlimited Mobile TV access plan."

They forgot to mention that you also need the $20/month unlimited data plan, and you'll have to pay $3/month per channel that you subscribe to or you can buy individual shows for $1 each. C'mon, this is AT&T. They will nickel and dime you to death at every opportunity.

Re:

[ShadowsHawk]

Wow, this should really be modded up. Why would anyone spend that kind of cash?

Well that's just great

[spamking]

Great. The idiots I'm forced to follow who have a cell phone can barely talk and drive at the same time. I'm sure this idea of mobile TV on your phone is going to go over really well.

I mean seriously, do we need more distractions while we drive?

Re:

[NatasRevol]

Don't complain, there will be new ways to celebrate the Darwin awards!

Slingbox?

[acklenx]

$150 hardware cost
no subscriptions fees
watch anything you get at home

what am i missing?

Re:

[crunzh]

Maybe the unlimited dataplan for the cellphone+always on DSL at home.

Wow! What a new concept

[jcrousedotcom]

I was watching a news clip this morning on CNN Mobile on my SprintTV enabled Treo about this great new concept - getting live feed TV on my mobile phone. Oh, wait, I can already do that. How is this news?

Why is this such big news?

[bturcotte]

Maybe i'm missing something here but this certainly is not ground breaking news? Rogers in Canada has had mobile tv for a couple years as far as I know?. It works on most of their phones now, even $0 ones. Same pricing scheme, $15/mnth for unlimited access. I bought it just to try it out and ended up canceling the same week.

Already in the US

[teknopurge]

Sprint has had this via MobiTV for at least 3 years.

Re:

[cashman73]

The problem with the train ride thing, is that if it's a subway, you won't have service, more than likely,...

Why even bother?

[EEGeek]

Bell Canada has offered something similar for about a year and a half now. Its actually quite useless, and hard to watch TV on a little 1 inch screen... waste of money if you ask me... if you need TV that badly, you have problems.

iPhone

[barbam]

Great -- so now the FanBoys can have TV on the iPhone. Too bad it runs on such a slow network. What a waste. That thing is as revolutionary as Barrack Obama.

ReWhat kind of TV?

[Douglas Goodall]

Would that be color, or black and white?

So late?

[LinuxLuver]

Vodafone in New Zealand has had mobile TV for most of a year for NZ$2.50 / week (US$1.90). OK, it's all sports, celeb gossip, cartoons, reality shows (MTV) and soft porn (Playboy). They dropped CNN - the only news channel - becasue no (but me, I guess) was watching. I dropped the service. Nothing of interest there for me. But it's been around for a while now.