OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2008--Sprint (NYSE: S) today announced that it will become the first wireless carrier to offer live NFL game telecasts starting Nov. 6 when NFL Network televises the first game its eight-game schedule. Sprint will be the only wireless carrier to offer the NFL Network game telecasts via its exclusive NFL Mobile Live application and on Sprint TV, free of charge to Sprint data subscribers. Read More ...

AT&T announced that their MobileTV product, which is powered by Qualcomm’s MediaFLO platform will go live on May 4th. The launch coincides with two new handset launches, the Vu from LG Electronics and the Access from Samsung, that AT&T says will provide a better MobileTV viewing experience. AT&T MobileTV will offer programming from leading news and entertainment brands: CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, MTV Networks' COMEDY CENTRAL, MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as PIX and CNN Mobile Live, which are both AT&T - exclusive. The service will launch in 58 markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Monthly access packages for AT&T Mobile TV begin at $15 a month for the Basic package. AT&T also offers a Mobile TV Plus package for $30 a month, which includes unlimited Mobile TV and unlimited mobile Web browsing.

CinemaNow and uVuMobile, a mobility software and services company, announced the availability of remote wireless downloads and wireless movie trailer viewing. The new feature allows subscribers to preview movies on their WAP enabled cellular phones and remotely download movies to appropriate consumer electronic devices. The end devices have to be CinemaNow Media Manager-enabled, including PCs, digital television sets (DTV), portable media players (PMP), set-top boxes (STB) and network attached storage (NAS) devices.

AT&T announced they will be launching MobileTV in May 2008 on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO platform. The new video service will launch on two handsets initially, the LG Vu and the Samsung Access. Content will come from CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2Go and Nickelodeon. AT&T also says they will soon launch two exclusive AT&T MobileTV channels.

Sprint has announced the launch of Sprint Exclusive Entertainment (SEE), its own network of originally produced content for Sprint mobile phones. SEE, which will initially focus on sports, music, and other entertainment focused programming, will offer brief on-demand programs averaging two minutes in length. Sprint produces the content themselves and expects to deliver up to 150 programs each week. SEE illustrates the continuing trend of service providers producing content for both mobile and landline video networks.

Telecom carriers from the largest to the smallest are experimenting with content production and distribution as a way to offer differentiation from competitors. Distribution of this content is happening across multiple platforms, including VOD, PC, and mobile. As carriers gain more experience in content production, the sophistication and production quality will certainly increase. It’s too early to tell if these moves build significant competitive advantage. There is a contrarian view within telecom spaces that argue content production should be left to those who do it for a living and know it well. These skeptics argue that telecom carriers should stick to what they know and focus on becoming a distributor of content, not a producer. Respectable arguments can be made on both sides of this equation. For the time being, it appears as if the march towards content production will continue by telecom carriers. Time will tell whether this strategy adds any real value to both consumers and company stakeholders.

AT&T’s announced purchase of Aloha Partners 700 Mhz spectrum for $2.5 billion may alter the competitive landscape for both mobileTV and mobile broadband. The implications impact companies like Qualcomm on the mobileTV side as well as smaller regional and rural carriers who intend to participate in the upcoming 700 Mhz spectrum auction (more on this point later). Aloha’s subsidiary, HiWire was poised to be a leading mobileTV operator in the U.S., utilizing the DVB-H standard. AT&T has committed to offering mobileTV as well, but through Qualcomm’s MediaFLO platform, a competitor to HiWire and DVB-H. The question on everyone’s mind is will AT&T forgo mobileTV with its newly acquired Aloha spectrum, and use it instead for mobile broadband purposes. Regardless of AT&T’s intentions, the removal of HiWire from the mobileTV competitive landscape is potentially good news for Qualcomm and MediaFLO.

This development also complicates the already complex jockeying for the upcoming 700 Mhz auction, scheduled to take place on January 24, 2008. This pre-emptive move by AT&T signals they intend to be a major player in 700 Mhz. The 12 Mhz of spectrum (C block of the lower band) the Aloha purchase provides AT&T is not adequate enough for a robust nationwide network. That implies that AT&T intends to gain additional spectrum at the auction, and because of Aloha’s band placement, may “muddy the waters” as to where the players will fall. AT&T is kind of a wild card now, because they may want to expand their holding in the lower 700 Mhz band, which pairs nicely with the Aloha spectrum assets. That would be somewhat of a new development, because previous thinking had the larger players like AT&T and Verizon more interested in the upper band 700 Mhz spectrum. The lower band is attractive to smaller regional and rural carriers because the auction rules has the lower bands broken into smaller geographic regions, whereas the upper band is broken into much larger geographic regions, and thus more attractive to larger national providers. But AT&T may now see the lower band, smaller geographic license areas as attractive, and simply outbid regional and rural carriers. Many of those smaller carriers were looking to the 700 Mhz auction as a way to get a foothold in the mobile broadband arena. There is potential that they may not get that opportunity now. If AT&T does decide to swallow the lower band, they could remove the potential for many additional mobile broadband carriers to emerge after the auction, thus significantly altering the competitive landscape for mobile broadband.

The U.S. is the unofficial king of couch potato syndrome. Fitness enthusiasts swear that syndrome contributes to the obesity problem in the U.S. Despite numerous strategies, we as a nation can’t seem to get off the couch and stop watching TV. That is until now. Maybe the answer to curbing the couch potato syndrome is to leave the TV part in the equation. Hence MobileTV. According to an RCR Wireless News article, mobileTV is firmly off the ground and coming to a handheld near you soon. So, you will soon be able to get off the couch, but keep the TV. One of the more interesting scenarios around MobileTV is its competitive implications

The RCR article featured a comparison between Hiwire and MediaFLO, the two most established mobileTV options in the U.S. Hiwire is owned by Aloha Partners, the largest owner of 700 Mhz spectrum in the U.S (at least for now) and uses the DVB-H standard. MediaFLO was developed by Qualcomm and has been established as a Qualcomm business unit. There is a natural competitive rivalry between these two providers, but the implications go beyond just the two of them. What remains to be seen is how mobileTV will be positioned in the marketplace. Will it simply be a feature offered by all major wireless carriers, or will stand alone mobileTV companies emerge that offer a compelling entertainment on the go service alone. Taking it a step further, will mobileTV mature to a legitimate competitor to home cable/IPTV/DBS service? Will smartphones or mobile media players some day also function as a STB for my home television? Some day in the not too distant future, mobileTV services may contribute to ditching "landline" television service, in much the same way that mobile wireless is eroding landline telephone service today. It's difficult to see a day when mobileTV will be robust enough to rival today's landline subscription television service. But maybe it doesn't have too. Maybe a significant number of consumers will get "just enough" from mobileTV to cut the television cord. No one knows the answers to these questions. There are a lot of smart people who will predict many things. But as always, the future is decided by paying consumers. It will be fun to watch. And in this case, thanks to mobileTV, we can watch it wherever we happen to be.

Clearwire is partnering with ICO, a satellite communications company based in Reston, VA, to test a mobile video service. The trial is expected to commence in 2008 and will use both Clearwire’s 2.5 Ghz spectrum and ICO’s 2.0 Ghz spectrum. Raleigh, NC is the first trial market,with Las Vegas also expected to see a similar trial. ICO brands their solution as Mobile Interactive Media (MIM), which uses both terrestrial and satellite platforms. MIM will provide multiple channels of mobile video to large-screen user devices. Alcatel-Lucent has been will supply the system architecture and design based on mobile multimedia DVB-SH open standard.

Alltel and mywaves announced the availability of mywaves on Alltel wireless handsets. Mywaves allows customers to browse thousands of "Web videos" and watch them from their phone. Alltel will charge $3.99 per month for the service. Mywaves runs on handsets which utilize the Qualcomm Brew platform.

Verizon’s V CAST Service is now operating in 28 markets across the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. V CAST offers 8 live TV channels, including CBS Mobile, ESPN, MTV Fox Mobile, NBC 2Go, and Comedy Central. Pricing starts at $13 per month for four channels; a $15-per-month intermediate package with all eight channels; and a $25 monthly premium package that includes the all channels plus unlimited access to a library of on-demand clips.

Check out this V CAST web commercial.