Wireless Informatics Forum

Just 10 months after launch, Virgin Mobile has announced that intends to switch off its mobile TV service (according to reports from www.theregister.co.uk). The only handset in the Virgin portfolio capable of receiving the service was the Lobster 700TV – and this only managed sales of around 10,000 units.

The service used BT Movio’s DMB (over DAB) platform; with no other customers its future is also now uncertain. We [WDSGlobal] did an analysis of the handset and service when it first launched – running through some of the basic configurations required to start watching and benefiting from truly mobile broadcasts. Certainly there were some teething troubles but the service was activated relatively easily and sold by some very well trained Virgin staff – however things started to collapse after that. Despite sound being of an excellent quality and the screen size just bearable, the experience was impacted by the sound and vision often being out of sync, license restrictions applied to certain shows, a lack of landscape format and a limited (at the time) portfolio of four channels [at the time of review].

Certainly the styling of the Lobster had a certain ‘marmite’ factor – you either loved it or hated it. The bulge on the right hand side (housing the DAB kit) always looked like an afterthought with the designers taking the fastest and cheapest route to adding mobile TV functionality to an existing handset. We also had some comments about the keys, with a poor feel and different materials / finish used for some of the numeric keys making touch-typing a little confusing. But let’s not lay blame at the foot of an otherwise acceptable and well-built handset. Instead it seems that a wider mobile TV shakeout is well and truly underway.

But forget the technology behind the services (even though DMB services are under pressure since the EU endorsed DVB-H) and forget concerns that people don’t want to view TV on the small screen (They will – certainly the YouTube generation), the key barrier to date is the business model. In June an In-Stat survey of 1,000 U.S. households found that while 35% of the respondents were interested in free mobile video, fewer than 7% said they’d pay $15 a month.

Virgin’s TV service was free for contract customers but £5 p/moth for pay as you go – and for an MVNO this represents the vast majority of customers.

The web 2.0 culture that is growing all around us is knocking the ability for so many content providers to monetize their services. Consumers want to consume – they just don’t want to pay for the privilege.