O2 says customers want mobile TV on the go

18 January 2006 11:14 GMT / By Stuart Miles

O2 is the latest operator to suggest that its customers want mobile TV following the completion of a trial in Oxford.

The company, which started TV trials using the DVB-H technology in Oxford last September, said that 76% of 375 customers participating in the trial said they would take up the service within a year if it went live.

It also said 83% of the users in the trial, who were offered round-the-clock live access to 16 television channels, were satisfied with the services provided, and on average watched TV on mobiles for 3 hours a week.

The announcement comes a week after BT announced that its trials using a competing technology had been completed successfully.

Its service, which is expected to be available by the end of the year, would be available to all operators in the UK uses DAB radio signals rather than 3G to transmit the information.

BT believes it has demonstrated clear consumer demand for broadcast digital TV and radio with 38% of users in the trail saying they would switch networks to use it.

MobiTV who is also trying to promote content for mobiles said "MobiTV welcomes the recent announcements concerning mobile television following both the Oxford trial with O2/Arqiva and the BT/Virgin Mobile trial. These trials, along with the successful deployment of live mobile television services provided by MobiTV across the Orange and 3 networks in the UK and many other global deployments, demonstrate mobile television is a service with considerable consumer interest."

O2 said the trials had clearly shown that demand existed for mobile TV, and now want UK regulator Ofcom to release the UHF spectrum required for the service early.

Full tags

Phones, Apps, Mobile phone TV, O2