AT&T Pushes Mute Button on MediaFLO Mobile TV Service Until 2008
October 28, 2007 by Jeff Orr
by Jeff Orr, Editor
Mobile Broadband News
Reuters is reporting that AT&T is delaying their commercial launch of MediaFLO USA’s technology and mobile TV network until early 2008. While the US mobile service carrier didn’t elaborate on the exact cause for the change in launch, a spokesperson told Reuters that AT&T continues to fine-tune the service.
Mobile TV services are currently dominated by consumer subscribers in Japan and South Korea. Mobile TV provides a way for consumers to tune-in to a variety of programming on a handheld device, similar to watching limited TV programming from home. Depending on the region and service offering, approximately 6-8 channels of predefined programming are offered to subscribers.
Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA subsidiary boosted build of their US network for mobile TV services in 2004. AT&T competitor Verizon Wireless began offering mobile TV services on the MediaFLO network in March of this year. Sprint Nextel has opted to pursue mobile TV using the capabilities of Internet protocols for streaming video and audio — dubbed IPTV. They cite advantages for IPTV include place- and time-shifting (similar to popular functions found in TiVO and Sling Box devices), along with nearly unlimited channel choices.
[...] The company announced its plans to launch a mobile TV service in February 2007, but failed to meet Q4′2007 estimates. In late October, the operator delayed until “early 2008″. [...]