Mar 26, 2009 10:15 AM,

CruiseCast prepped for commercial launch by AT&T

By Sarah Reedy

RaySat Broadcasting joins forces with technology providers to power AT&T’s in-vehicle satellite TV service

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There are no technical constraints on how many channels can be added to CruiseCast – just economic ones. Guillory said they’ll wait until they get a large number of users to add in tiers of packaging, much like a standard satellite TV service in the home. Adding interactivity to the service is also a possibility going forward. At launch, the service will cost consumers $28 per month plus a minimum product cost of $1,299. It will also be offered through relationships with rental car companies, including Avis, for day passes as well.

CruiseCast is similar to Alcatel-Lucent and ICO Global Communication’s joint DVB-SH venture, demoed for the first time in the United States at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The integrated satellite and terrestrial broadcast service broadcasts up to 15 channels via small antennas on the vehicle. CruiseCast is different, Guillory said, in that it provides more channels to the end consumer and in that the in-car hardware is available now. CruiseCast could also be a complementary service to the local broadcast-driven mobile TV service championed by the Open Mobile Video Coalition when it launches in the US.

“We believe that once the [ATSC] standard becomes final and this comes out, we want to take advantage of that and add hardware into our systems and put their channels into the programming guide,” Guillory said. “For national feeds and local feeds, we’d have an antenna for each. We’d welcome that to come in. It offers local sports and weather. It would enhance our system as well. We don’t view that as a competitor, because most people don’t want just local channels. They want extended service, whether cable or satellite.”

Guillory said that the company is finalizing its last content agreements now following a successful soft launch. The product is ready to go to end consumers and is being beta-tested, he said, but they haven’t yet turned up the subscription service. That will happen this spring or potentially as late as the summer.