Users turn their noses up at mobile TV

Turn on, tune in, turn off again

By Bill Ray in Barcelona • Get more from this author

Posted in Mobile, 12th February 2007 16:04 GMT

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3GSM It's not just the slow uptake of video services that should worry network operators, it seems that more than half of European users who've tried TV on the move decided it wasn't worth the effort. This data comes from a survey of 22,000 European users, commissioned by Tellabs and carried out by M:Metrics.

Cost is the biggest issue turning off users. Forty-five per cent of disconnections came down to money, but 24 per cent dropped the service because of quality and reliability issues.

Price and quality generally go hand-in-hand, so it's safe to assume that better quality would have reduced concerns about price.

Nearly 30 per cent of UK users cited quality as the reason they wanted out.

The study didn't establish what technology was being used, so unfortunately there's no opportunity to compare broadcast with narrowcast solutions. But overall it seems that users aren't enjoying the experience of video on the move and, once they've shown it off to their mates, seem to have little time for it.

This does not bode well for the industry, which is betting a great deal on consumers wanting video on the go and being prepared to pay for it. ®

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