Cingular offer MobiTV

Cingular Wireless has begun offering MobiTV for $9.99 per month on four cellular phones, according to the press release.

The video, TV-like service is available for the Nokia 6620, Motorola V3 (RAZR), Motorola V220 and Motorola V180.  MobiTV will soon be available for the Motorola V400 and V600.

Cingular is offering a three-day free trial.

Cautious optimism

Sprint PCS had been the first cellular operator to offer MobiTV.  I've tested it on Sprint and the initial service operates like a slide show.  You hear the audio and the graphics change every few seconds.

Sprint recently introduced a much faster service that is designed to operate more like streaming video, but I haven't used that yet.

Many analysts have been skeptical about television and streaming video services for cellular phones.  I have always been cautiously optimistic about its success.

My view is that given the right combination of interesting content, reasonable pricing, suffciently large screens and reliable performance, video services could be successful.

For additional information about MobiTV and cellular video services, check out today's CNET News article and another CNET News article from January 7, 2005.

Comments

[Tychocat]

I remain dubious about the much-ballyhooed Next Great Thing, apparently being the only person on the continental United States who doesn't see the utility of watching movies on screens the size of postage stamps.

That being said, my *real* question is, Cingular is offering this dubious feature on a number of Motorola sets - where is the Sony Ericsson S710 in all of this? By all accounts, it's got a gorgeous QVGA 262K-color display that ought to be adequate to the job. Cingular's got an exclusive distribution deal on the S710 but has done nothing with it beyond announce 2004 Q4 availability, of which nothing more need be said...