Helsinki pilot shows demand for Mobile TV services

Nokia today said that a pilot mobile TV project it ran with a consortium of operators and content providers in Helsinki found that 41% of participants would be willing to buy mobile TV content and that 50% felt that a price of 10 Euros (about $12.20) would be a reasonable price to pay for that content.

The pilot project--conducted with radio and TV programming distributors Digita and Yleisradio; operators Elisa and TeliaSonera; broadcasters MTV3, Subtv and Channel Four; and Nokia--launched last fall with initial network tests and culminated this spring with a full the full commercial pilot involving 500 Helsinki residents, each paying 4.90 Euros a month for the service.

The pilot found that participants wanted to watch both familiar TV content and purpose-made mobile content. Users spent an average of 20 minutes a day watching mobile TV with more active users watching as much as 40 minutes, Nokia said. The pilot also found that peak times for mobile TV watching were different than that for traditional TV, which could offset some concerns that mobile TV would take audience away from traditional broadcasting.

Viewers focused mainly on sports and news channels, watching the BBC, CNN, Euronews and a variety of sporting events, including the Ice Hockey World Cup games, Formula One racing and soccer matches.

"The Helsinki pilot reinforces our belief that mobile broadcast TV is a significant opportunity," Nokia vice president of rich media Richard Sharp said in a statement. "The message for the industry is clear: for mobile TV services to succeed we need relevant and compelling content, easy-to-use technology and reasonable and simple pricing plans. With these elements in place, consumer demand for mobile TV will follow."

The project used Nokia 7710 media handsets and Nokia DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) gear set up over Elisa and TeliaSonera’s GSM networks in the Finnish Capital. Each of the content providers and distributors provided a devoted content channel and contributed to theme channel and transmitted both television and radio feeds. The overall capabilities of the network, however, weren’t fully utilized as the DVB-H theoretically can provide 55 streaming channels of audio and video.