This story appears in the
March 2004 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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How do you pass the time in airports and taxicabs? How about
watching TV-on your cell phone?
Sprint's PCS Vision data network has become the first to
carry the live TV news and special interest broadcasts of MobiTV
(www.mobitv.com), a global TV network from Berkeley,
California-based Idetic. For a surprisingly low $10 per month
billed against a $15 monthly Sprint premium fee, you can catch news
and market reports on ABC, MSNBC, CNBC or CNET; or diverting
documentaries on The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel. There
are also sports and music stations-even kiddie stations like
ToonWorld, which attract a surprisingly mature demographic,
according to Idetic CEO Phillip Alvelda.
You'll need one of a dozen color phones supporting Java or
BREW applications, like Sanyo's 8100 or Samsung's VGA1000.
Audio and video streams won't synchronize any better than those
video phones used at war fronts, but they are live streams-as
opposed to prerecorded file downloads-and affect battery life
very little.
MobiTV broadcasts will improve significantly as network
bandwidth and phone processors do, promises Alvelda. He's
intent on bringing this and other video applications to all the
world's 1.2 billion cell phones.