MultiChoice has appointed Intelsat to support its mobile TV broadcast trials, already under way since November, the satellite giant said this week.
The trial involves broadcasting a bouquet of DSTV channels to specially-equipped mobile handsets in Johannesburg, Soweto, Cape Town and Pretoria. MultiChoice CTO Gerdus van Eeden declined to disclose the value of the Intelsat contract, saying the amount was "commercially confidential".
Intelsat senior VP for Africa, Middle East and Asia, Stephen Spengler, says the project represents the company's "third mobile video application, as we are supporting systems that are in commercial deployment in Europe and in the US".
MultiChoice seeks to refine the transmission of digital video broadcasting to handheld (DVB-H) technology. It also wants to understand viewing patterns and content preferences in the target market.
Mobile TV, as defined in this trial, must not be confused with similar trials by cellphone carriers. The carriers offer TV content from MultiChoice, plus some mobile services of their own, to anyone, anywhere in the country where there is 3G coverage.
The bouquet consists of 10 to 12 trial channels, and some "made for mobile" content, beamed to Intelsat's IS-902 satellite that then distributes the programming to a number of terrestrial retransmitter sites in the trial cities.
Linda Vermaas, CEO of MultiChoice division M-Mobile, told ITWeb sister publication Brainstorm that picture quality and content branding are key requirements for successful consumer adoption. "The TV in your lounge is what you carry around in your pocket," she says, "...the quality is the same."
DVB-H is a relatively young technology - it is two years old this month; and was first rolled out in Italy. Vermaas says the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) "has been quite visionary" in its approach to regulating this new field of broadcasting.
"The framework is there. The actual timeline to get approval is now in the hands of ICASA. It's not ours to determine. But we are ready and we're hoping for a launch fairly early in 2007."
Once it does launch, she says the objective is to roll-out the required digital terrestrial television network as extensively as makes sense in terms of MultiChoice's business model.
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