LocationFree TV by Sony - headaches for broadcasters

You just purchased the rights for say, the UEFA Champions League for the whole United Kingdom. Unfortunately, thanks to such remote TV concepts as Sony's LocationFree TV, you cannot make sure every viewer in Spain uses your channel.
And don't you "It's-OK-for-me" me ; it's not as if the viewer watches your anyway free program along with your so profitable ads : this roamer actually enjoys the service he paid for in his home country, seamlessly and furthermore, YOUlessly.
You may not know it but parts of your revenue may already be literally streaming away from you, and the beauty of it is there's not much you can do (unless Big Medias Inc manage to rule Internet 2.0).
There is an international loophole similar to the one cellcos suffered with termination charges a long while ago. You want to keep an eye on the lunatics locking a few rights for the Tuvalu or Bermuda audiences.

T Login for HSDPA, EV-DO, WiBro and YouNameIt

SK Telecom having a knack for new brands and new technos, customers must be struggling to keep the pace with the operator's launching machine.
T Login isn't Deutsche Telekom's latest Business Unit but a key to all SKT wireless data accesses (3G EV-DO, HSDPA, WiBro... or why not TD-SCDMA tomorrow* ?) for all devices (laptops, PMPs, digital cameras, car navigators...).
And which common denominator connectivity do you think they picked up before embedded solutions - T Login inside - are available ? Neither Bluetooth nor a vulgar 802.1x wannabe, but Korea's ultimate entry point : the USB.
Yet another proof of SKT's priorities, the first T Login modems will start with HSDPA and add WiBro on time for Xmas and at full throttle 3 months later**. Thanks to KRW 190,000 subsidies, retail prices are slashed to KRW 50,000 or about $ 50, which reflects the importance of this new entry point. SKT decided to boost the buzz by recruiting 30 "quality reviewers" on the web besides the usual pilot testers. Service rates range from KRW 29,900 per month for 2GB (+ KRW 184 per additional MB) to KRW 45,000 for 3GB (+ KRW 123). To be compared to, say, a basic fee of KRW 33,000 for Hanaro Telecom's unlimited Fiber LAN access for cyber apartments.
Overall market is estimated at 2 million people, with the usual suspects mobile office workers and road warriors among core targets, but also students because the group intends to embed its major entertainment brands MelOn, cyworld & Co. too - hell, they even offer dodoris as prelaunch incentives ! In a country where PC cards failed, HSDPA does stand a chance and SKT can leverage on security advantages as well as roaming perspectives for business users.



* since the techno is about to enter Korea (see "TD-SCDMA in Korea" - 20060901)

** No S-DMB in sight and anyway TU media didn't communicate much after the launch of free T-DMB services while KTF claimed 164,000 customers end of May.

GSM rules in the Americas

It was only a matter of time with the TDMA migration but GSM eventually reached the 50% mark in the Americas before the end of Q2 2006 (51%, up from 38% one year earlier).
The situation remains better in Latin America and the Caribbean (63%) than in North America, where CDMA gained 2.8M subs compared to 3.8M for GSM and 505k for iDEN last quarter : considering TDMA lost 1.6M, this means the CDMA family still outscored the GSM-TDMA squad 51% to 45% in net adds. Spectrum hassles keep preventing W-CDMA from entering the Kingdom of Qualcomm, where Sprint just launched the Novatel Wireless S720 Sprint Mobile Broadband Card ; not much of a name but an EV-DO Revision A device nonetheless.
The CDG is rejoicing but during the last five years, the CDMA roadmap has shrunk to a Data Only thing. I guess Doc Jacobs is working on a disruptive Voice over DO evolution... Reversal of fortune ?


And oh - Happy birthday to GSM (15 years), cdmaOne (10 years) and CDMA2000 (5 years).

TD-SCDMA in Korea

A few years ago, Korea felt proud to be, along with Japan, the only Asian country without any Chinese minority. That became a handicap after 1992 and the Chinese boom, so Incheon and Busan built from scratch actuals Chinatowns within their city limits in order to lure their precious neighbors.
These days, from a technological point of view, Seoul tends to play Beijing over Washington : the Government makes Microsoft and Qualcomm suffer and doesn't hesitate to risk its own jewels (CDMA2000 lead, KTX bullet trains) in order to please the Empire. The result can look weird : Seoul invested a lot to destroy an ugly overpass and restore the Cheonggyecheon, urban planners are wondering how they will get rid of existing overway / subway lines (ie Nowon - Sanggye)... but the city decided nonetheless to build an overway Maglev line in Gangnam only because it could help the country get juicy contracts in China.
So no one should be surprised when Korea's leading cellco announces test TD-SCDMA base stations in Seoul for next year. SK Telecom just signed a MOU with China's NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) to jointly develop 3G, 4G and beyond the Chinese way, along with all their Korea, Inc partners (hardware, software, middleware, content...). Qualcomm is going to love this.


PS / Quizz : "The Host" (Gaemul), Bong Joon-ho's last flick, is breaking all the local box office records... can you tell which radiation will create the next 802.1x pound Han river monster : cdma, cdma2000, EV-DO, W-CDMA, HSDPA, WiFi, WiBro, TD-SCDMA, all of the above, none of the above ?

MVNE and VMVNOs

MVNOs are blooming but the most successful one (actually, the grand sugarmamma of them all) happens to be a virtual MVNO : behind a unique and powerful brand, the Virgin Mobile franchise looks like a financial chameleon. Each story depending on too many factors to build a case, all attempts for an international seamless player failed and there is no such thing as a pure player.
Most MVNOs tend to communicate on partnerships rather than financial data. Amp'd can be a practical vehicle / advertising tool for content providers (MTV, UMG) or enablers (Qualcomm), but a sexy partnership with Break.com doesn't necessarily mean a wedding with breakeven.net. Even niche marketing experts can fail where they should sparkle : Movida are only proposing now the first prepaid plans much needed by a mostly un-banked core target and I wonder how many customers they average per POS (45,000 points of sale claimed mid 2006)...
On the other hand, MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enablers) are all the rage. In France, where MVNOs claimed a stratospheric 1.46% last June (up from 0.09% one year earlier), The Phone House / Carphone Warehouse found their vocation after practicing as far as the short MNO leash let them go (kenavo Breitz Mobile), and their union with Virgin Mobile definitely looks better than their unproductive affair with AOL (mViva). France's top soccer clubs (OM, PSG, RCL, ASSE and OL) are using a major in marketing for fans, Universal Music Mobile, as their commercial MVNE... but the actual technical MVNE is the MNO itself, as the OM / PSG / RCL / ASSE / OL mobile by Orange branding tells us*.
Well, the fact is MNOs remain the most vital enablers for MVNOs. And all this 'virtual' / 'enabler' stuff is nothing but words. This isn't a plug & play environment yet.


* Orange invented the "by Orange" concept for M6 mobile - a smart way of pleasing the regulator while feeding the brand.

Record launch for Nokia

Lassi Etelatalo won the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championship with a new World Record (89 meters) but an old Nokia. The man is used to throw javelins but should try antennas as well - picture this : this human power-towerco covers 7,921 square meters.

Windows Lite live in Seoul - Special K fat (profits) free ?

New OEM Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition versions are being delivered today in Korea. Following a 32.5 bn Won fine, "Windows XP K" goes either without the usual suspects (MSN Messenger, Windows Media) or with a full choice (all major messengers, a web link to all media players).
PC manufacturers can test the new OS from now on but endusers won't discover this "disruptive innovation" before next February...
Late as usual, but this time no bugs to be blamed. Especially not from a financial point of view : thanks to their brilliant R&D team (that's for Revamping & Delaying), Microsoft are about to save yet another Xmas season.

MySpace France : dial fr for Murdoch

MySpace France opened their beta version on the web*. Un-translated US banners feebly try to animate an almost empty shell but you can count on Fox Interactive Media for tying a few knots with local media partners.
In France, Murdoch's blog machine cannot leverage on a strong News Corp presence and worse, it will face a strong leader with a rather newscorpish look and feel : Skyblog sounds like a Sky branch and succesfully targets the illiterate. Yes, the global deal with Google can bring audience, but not substance... and especially not MySpace's trademark podcastable broadband-broadchested-six-pack-daily-mirrorish substance.
MySpace France must be finalizing some partnerships with a cellco / M-VNO, and certainly with TV / radio channels. I don't expect Arte / France Culture executives to be shortening their holidays.


* dial http://fr.myspace.com/ for Murdoch ; myspace.fr seems to be auctioned by its opportunist owner.

Cyworld vs MySpace... SKT has it both ways

Is it the sky falling over MySpace and Ruppert Chicken Little Murdoch or just acorns from his new Korean partner in the mobile arena* ? A few weeks after Helio, SK Telecom are about to launch Cyworld in the US.
Right now, the beta version** only hosts 364 clubs but totoris are already up for grabs and unlike in Korea, there is a clear focus on the younger generations. Besides, there is more (Mini)room for actual pictures and actual goods for your totoris vs the usual virtual Minimes and virtual goods... which should mean a more direct broadband war to News Corp's podcasting giant. The question is : how long before cyworld gets mobile in the US too ?
Next stops for the cyworld train : Europe, South America and India.



* about the Helio-MySpace deal, see "MySpace Mobile On Helio with Hero and Kickflip" (20060220)
** http://us.cyworld.com/

Zune - comin' down next ?

There was a gap in Microsoft's anticompetitive maze and its name was iPod. The Zune project is supposed to fill the gap and strenghten Redmond's portable multimedia player / game console front. Just like origami, Zune 1.0 will be a useless thing to please avid analysts and not so avid developpers. Just like origami, Zune is not even a brand. Since it's pronounced the same way as June, a reference in mobile multimedia, SK Telecom could even sue them. Besides, Zune.com doesn't belong to Gates yet but to Gate Market Research Limited*. So the teaser website is comingzune.com, which could mean we won't have a device for Christmaz but at earliest coming Zune or maybe Zuly 2009 because this is the way we work up in Washington.

The least one could say is that one could see this iPod killer coming. iPod has been doomed for a while** and Microsoft has nothing to do with it : once again, apple have to become a more open community and to reach and federate far beyond their own customers. But they're back at ruining their best efforts - at least, this time, the iPod as a device is far from being the best looking multimedia player so I won't be crying a iRiver over it.

Microsoft also tends to bore me. They're not even as good at being evil as they used to be since Paul Allen focuses on rock'n roll, Bill Gates on non virtual viruses, and Steve Ballmer on retirement plans. The company itself is focusing on self destruction : giving more dividends for shareholders, purchasing more stocks, being defensive even when it attacks. Of course Microsoft will lose money with Zune, just like with Origami, the XBox, Windows Mobile, MSN... any innovative thing money alone can't buy.


* you can't fool me lads : of the 20 significant changes in zune.com's whois in the past 5 years, 90% happened in the last 2 months !
** see "Apple - something rotten beyond the Kingdom of France" (20060322)

La3 Live - Berlin or Bust - Aussie Yield Management

Remember when 3 snatched the mobile rights for the 2006 World Cup ? HWL's unit certainly didn't get all its money back but its PR teams make sure they made the most of it, even where they didn't pay. Some feed back from 3 World Cup participants : England, Italy and Australia.

• 3 UK claimed 3.6M viewings for its World Cup mobile TV channels during the competition. That's a 61% increase vs May and an average 106,000 per day but also, less impressively, the equivalent of one viewing per customer (3.5M overall). According to the operator, two programs proved quite successful : World Cup Highlights lured enough people everyday to fill Highbury (38,500 seats - make that one third of the total) and Berlin or Bust did 17.5% of the traffic.
  The most popular World Cup TV highlights were about England's glorious victories against the World's top 3 teams (Trinidad & Tobago, Paraguay and Equador), Zidane's infamous nod on Materazzi, and obviously the most important Becks-free game (Spain vs Ukraine - how many 3 handsets for the Rafael Benitez squad in Liverpool ?). The Berlin or Bust program was specifically designed for the event and users didn't have to pay anything to view it... well anything but 30 second ads for Canon, thanks to 3's marketing partner 4th Screen Advertising.
  In order to keep the show rolling and do better than the English team (no Berlin, just bust and crack some nuts), 3 offered through its Pilot Pitch unit a prize for the best mobile TV concept : TV producers can earn up to £50k for the funding of a pilot.
  -
  
• In Italia, Tre bet on DVB-H technology with the usual suspect (Nokia). La3 Live and its 9 channels were launched on June the 5th, right before the World Cup. The daily costs depends on the duration of the formula : 3 euros if by the day, 1.5 euros if by the week, 50c if by the semester. 3 expect 20% of the pop to use mobile TV by 2010 and targets 500,000 users for La3 Live by the end of the year. After 6 weeks of operation closely linked to the major sports event of the year, the cellco claims 110,000 users, and only give few insights about usage patterns (mostly outdoors, 40% of the time during office hours).
  -
• In Australia, 3 used the World Cup as a perfect yield management tool for its network : the games were played late at night and for AUS$ 8, you could have unlimited WC packages (videos, highlights and scores). On June 21st, 3 claimed 300,000 views after 12 days of competition and right before Australia-Croatia. Sessions lasted an average 6 mn, but some watched the whole game vs Japan... I hope none of these happy fews enjoyed a battery failure right before the Hiddink Boys' late come back.
  

Note that during the competition, 3 knotted a partnership with Yahoo!, who happens to be the FIFA's top internet partner.

From Couch Potatoes to French Fries - World Cup and Giant Screens - the new mass media

Flat screens didn't wait for the World Cup to defeat old cathodic tubes, but the clear winner of the competition could be the Giant Screen.
TV operators now enjoy new channels and propose an extreme customer experience : as the main public media, TV follows the event down to the streets and stadia and while couch potatoes remain stuck on their sofas, masses now stand up in public places like French Fries in cornets. The phenomenon even overshadowed such traditional semi-private diffusion sites as restaurants and bars.
Giant screens really became mainstream during the 2002 World Cup in Korea, when millions would hit the streets to follow the great campaign of the Taeguk Warriors. Back in 1998, public events would just gather a few thousands souls (ie in front of Paris' city hall). For the 2006 edition, which took place over 1,000 kms away, Parisians would flock by tens of thousands in the Parc des Princes, Jean-Bouin and Charlety stadia. Simultaneously. In a city where organizers traditionally avoid cannibalization among sportive / cultural events. And Germany itself enjoyed a new phenomenon : hundreds of thousands of ticketless foreign supporters took their cars, trains and planes just to join these giant screen parties (and that beer, too, maybe...).
Under such conditions, the battle between smaller screens (PC vs TV) looks almost trivial... and the very little screens have to position themselves a new way. Handsets can help the TVless supporter following games live or goal by goal, but they also remain the personal tool of individuals as well as small group of users for coping with a mass of supporters located either on the same spot or accross the globe. I guess by 2010 cellcos will package some solutions for such public game sessions the way they do now for music concerts.
During this World Cup, they noticed a very weak traffic during the games, but incredibly hot flashes during the breaks and at the end of the games, for voice as well as for data. For them, here lies the dilemma : if I get the rights for the event I have to invest heavily in order to cope with time and space peaks, and if I don't get them my network is as good as dead during one month...

RFID shopping and 3G shutting

RFID interactivity starts showing in various shops across Korea. Your mobile phone remains quiet but that shouldn't last long. Major retailers prefer developping their own screens to enhance customer experience : as soon as the shopper picks a product on the shelf, a screen nearby displays more information about it. Just a few items enjoy this feature for the moment but that could be a blessing - you don't want everybody around hearing about the performance of the hemorrhoid treatment you just discretely dropped in your caddy.

Can things possibly go worse for LG Telecom Inc ? The Korean cellco will lose its 3G cdma2000 license, about $300M (the part of the license fee they already paid) + $100 M in fines, and finally its CEO. From the start, LGT was doomed for being Korea's only non-W-CDMA 3G license holder*. More bad news for Doc Jacobs in Qualcomm's former Kingdom...

Things can definitely go bad in Korea : VK loses everything and one should expect more bankrupcies among Korea's small to medium sized handset manufacturers. Samsung looks untouchable as it becomes China's most recognized foreign brand, but profits start shrinking, and not only because of a stronger Korean Won.


* by the way, while launching 3G+, SKT started talking about HSUPA and released their Q1 2006 key figures... starting with a T1 figure : TU Media claimed 534,000 S-DMB subs end of April 2006 (1.2M expected end of year). We'd like to see the end of Q2 stats and the impact of subsidies... Note that GXG joined MelOn and cyworld as a key PR tool for the new King of Content... who doesn't deliver any data yet for his 3D game portal though... MelOn's 5M subs and mobile cyworld 286,000 active users brought respectively KRW 16 bn and 13 bn in revenues over Q106 ; the equivalent of 0.63% and 0.51% of SKT's overall revenues. But the recent deal between SK Communications and T-Online should boost cyworld across Europe... soon on a T-Mobile phone near you ?

Long Term Evolution and short term profits

NTT DoCoMo keep pushing LTE, 3GPP's new label for Super3G (beyond HSDPA and HSUPA - the last step before 4G), and sets an aggressive calendar : specs completed by the end of next year, TTM by the year of 2009.
Not far from DoCoMo's home turf, both KTF and SKT launched HSDPA and WiBro. The former techno is meant to become nationwide and the latter devoted to dense urban areas only... which means pretty much the same both sides of the Han river. But for the moment, WiBro is only a laptop thing (over 300 bucks per PC card plus a 30 per month plan). Since the Korean netiquette prevents people from using their handsets in the subway (definitely a change for the better for passengers), I'm not so sure everyone will connect everywhere that soon. I'd bet a few more bucks on mini mobile TV players for short sessions. At home, even HSDPA cannot beat FTTH in the appateu areas.
Did you know Korea still represented 37% of all license fees collected by Qualcomm last year ? No wonder their armies of lobbyists keep redeeming their Morning Calm miles to and from Incheon these days. Microsoft also remain under the Korean regulator's fire as well but still have more to lose in Europe, where Viviane Reding could furthermore help broadband multiservice providers catch up financially with MNOs (international roaming charges definitely cannot remain that high that long).

AT&T U-Verse 1 - better than chapter 11

Born again AT&T introduced its U-verse concept at the 2005 CES, with the ambition of covering 18M homes by the end of 2008. FTTH IPTV services only started late last month in 5,000 homes in San Antonio, TX with the help of Verizon's FiOS network.
This offer would look rather disappointing to Korean eyes and wallets : no more than 6 megs, up to $120 per month for a wireless bundle... but hey that's a start and ain't that much competition in SBC's 13-state-wide kingdom, so let early adopters finance innovation.

AT&T already rules in SBCland with 7.4M ADSL lines, but they intend to reach 100% in broadband coverage thanks to various fibers in urban areas, satellite broadband in rural areas (Project Lightspeed is supposed to reach 5.5M low-income households by the end of 2009), and fixed wireless (WiMAX a top pick) to fill the blanks.

The first 13 states before the whole country... this state of the AT&T-SBC union address should resonate as a warning to competing superpowers : we're not only focusing on homeland security ; we're also preparing preemptive strikes everywhere. But the old Texan way : we don't want to make it sound like an aggression, so no need to add "bring it on".

I also find rather clever their partnership with Yahoo! and Verizon Wireless "for a generation of tech-savvy consumers who rely on the Internet and wireless phones as their primary communications tools" (to wit : the smart ones who are leaving the incumbent - a speechless and voiceless carrier). AT&T position themselves as a central integrator of services : we help you subscribe to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, and to Verizon Wireless as well if you need a wireless service, but you can still chose AT&T for voice services at home. Beyond the usual "free" LLO services (Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling, Call Forwarding...), the AT&T CallVantage package proposes well marketed bonuses :
- Call Logs (with "click to dial")
- Do Not Disturb (only emergency calls pass through)
- Personal Conferencing (10 people overall)
- Locate Me (when you're away from home, incoming calls track you by ringing up to five phones all at once or one right after the other)
- Web-Based Voice Mail (AT&T just couldn't not include it in such an offer)

Why is it so interesting ? I'm not sure it will work, but it's neither some double-stage VoIP thing like Skype, nor an ugly plug-in like Vonage's latest USB gizmo. It's a truly operated service from a genuine operator or better, a Virtual Network Operator on its own network. It's both a win-back and a win-period approach, an attempt to sublimate voice services and fully give them their value back. I wish it weren't that expensive and I wish it could go beyond fixed and mobile, and even beyond the now traditional homezone concept.

Wanted : a stronger Asian CDMA alliance

In a rather Vodafonish / DoCoMish move, SK Telecom recently secured $1bn worth of China Unicom bonds - the equivalent of 6.6% in shares (if converted next year)*. The vehicle of this partnership, China Unicom Limited (CUHK), owns 100% of China Unicom Corporation Limited (CUCL), a mainland operator strong of 130 M subscribers of which 35 M are CDMA.
SKT seems to claim the leadership in CDMA-3G-and-beyond across the world, their US M-VNO Helio being another key part of this vast jigsaw puzzle. Korea's leading cellco didn't get the 10% it wanted but had to do something : it can't support the evolutions of an ailing CDMA community on its own, China pushes TD-SCDMA and Japan's NTT DoCoMo drafted its rival KTF in an impressive regional W-CDMA alliance.
SKT are also launching WiBro these days in Seoul, a few weeks after KTF** and also with Samsung. The Korean manufacturer is said to eye the Indian market for this "han-made" techno but doesn't bet everything on the same horse : a dual mode WiMAX-GSM handset will be up for grabs next year.

* that was the only event during SEK 2006 (Security and Content Exhibition Korea - www.sek.co.kr).
** see "Commercial HSDPA live in Korea" (20060517)

Belle Labs and niche marketing

Nature remains the best innovator.
In Florida, Belle, a 3 year-old and well trained bitch, saved her 34 year-old diabetic master thanks to two disrupting technologies : licking (her master's arm to check the level of sugar in his blood) and toothing (punching "9" on her master's handset to call emergencies - not with the paw but with a not-even-blue tooth).
Try doing this to your girlfriend if she faints on the beach this summer : the baywatch squad will knock you rabid you flat in a second - besides, your insurance doesn't cover handset bites.
We thought we knew everything about canine mobile connectivity*, but now we've got to get ready for SMS spamming from Lassie herself... niche marketing indeed.
Bunny tip of the day : don't you dare activate Playboy Mobile in the UK unless you can outrun greyhounds.

* in Japan, you can communicate with your dog and know where it is without leaving your office - hell, there are even dog-human translators out there !

Virgin SugarMama and the mother of all mergers

After Fujistu and BenQ, Nokia inherits part of the Siemens DNA... Will a fourth wedding mean the funerals of Siemens ?
To tell you the truth, no one cares : Siemens has never been the sexiest of all brands, nor mobile networks the most glamorous part of the business. The only question could be "WHEN will Ericsson tie the knot with another Asian partner ?"

Meanwhile, Virgin Mobile USA brings the old airtime-vs-ad concept to another level : teens are lured by a generous Sugar Mama (sugar daddies being not that PC) who offers airtime to those who give her some attention. It's an opt-in thing where innovation lies in the multimedia flavor of the candies :

• "ADTIME: Watch short online video spots and give your feedback.
• TEXTIME: Answer questions via text message.
• QTIME: Fill out brief surveys about brands, products, and services."

Besides and unlike session-by-session formulas where people have to undergo ads right before calling, Sugar Mama smarly leverages on its customer's "spare time".

The day is full of time outs when watching ads can be something else than a chore. That should be stimulating for admen as well.

Unlike at the network level, you may not have to tie tighter knots to lock your customers and partners.

World Cup Train - coverage and cover up

TU Media, SK Telecom's satellite mobile TV operator, will launch World Cup Trains for the Korea-Togo game : on June the 13th, a KTX bullet train will leave Busan at 9:30 and another Seoul at 9:50. All passengers will follow the game on big screen S-DMB devices.
This "event" is about coverage but also about covering up another event : TU Media's competitors just announced the coverage of Seoul's subway lines (1 to 4) with their own T-DMB techno. It's terrestrial, it's free, and you don't have to go all the way from Seoul to Busan to enjoy the games.
T-DMB operators started much later than SKT but since they don't need to control the devices, they can leverage on a much bigger community for terminals. The mobile TV function logically became an extension of PMPs (such Portable Multimedia Players as ReignCom's iRiver Pocket TV) as well as other screens (ie digital cameras : Samsung's Miniket Photo).

Watcha sure, but who's gonna paya

Under the "Watcha - TV goes mobile" motto (but with a SGH-P900), debitel started their T-DMB service on time for the World Cup*. Fernsehen macht Spass but also money : €9.95 per month... I'd rather invest in a digital TV USB key or player (both are selling fine in Korea and advertising started in Europe).
In a quite sober press release, Samsung reminded their readers they also provided DVB-H handsets for the Italian market - it's not us vs them, after all. This small operation with a minor VNO is just a PR thing... we don't want to fight with European majors - nor leave them in the hands of Nokia.
If European big league MNOs are definitely interested in mobile TV, right now they're doing a lot of noise at the top of their voices. Actually, voice reached its top and time has come to slash roaming rates. The anti-Vodafone alliance reacted to Vodafone-and-3's announcements but once more, a not so impressive way : T-Mobile, Orange, Wind, Telecom Italia, Telenor and TeliaSonera proposed common goals for October (retail max €0.45 / mn) and next year (max €0.36 / mn), but Telefonica-O2 declined in order to salvage their golden goose beyond the 2006 summer season.

* Watcha : www.watcha.de and www.debitel.de/tv.