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Verizon Considering DVB-H for Live TV

Oct 5, 2005, 1:55 PM by (staff)

An analyst citing insider sources claimed this week that Verizon Wireless has chosen Crown Castle's forthcoming DVB-H network to offer live TV service early next year. Crown Castle owns over 10,000 tower sites nationwide, as well as 5 MHz of national spectrum near 1670 MHz for the service. Crown Castle and Nokia have already conducted a successful trial of the technology in Pittsburgh, and expect to launch in up to 30 markets within two years. The service will reportedly offer up to 16 channels of live video at 20 frames per second. Verizon's VCast video service currently offers only prerecorded clips - not live TV - due to spectrum and capacity concerns. Both VCast and Crown Castle's service are based on Microsoft's Windows Media technology. Verizon choosing DVB-H could be a major blow for Qualcomm's competing MediaFLO offering.

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Comments

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

MediaGuru

Oct 10, 2005, 12:04 PM

I think I'll wait until the press release

Well, the analyst has a 50/50 chance of getting it right (the other guess would have been MediaFLO BTW). We'll see what really happens.

jinx7676

Oct 6, 2005, 8:12 PM

Cingular already has live TV...

Cingular already has this capability via MobiTV. with the Nokia 6682 it's around 17-22 frames per second on EDGE.

Rich Brome

Sprint has MibiTV, too, but you're dreaming if you think it really hits 17-22 FPS for most people. There's a massive difference in resolution and quality between MobiTV over 2.5 and something like DVB-H.

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tomorrowfactory

Oct 5, 2005, 7:31 PM

I am sick of Verizon always relying on other companies

I am glad that verizon is improving their technology. however, the technology they are about to use will have dead spots and would not work everywhere.( i beleive)
I visited korea and korea had a similar service. I heard that SKtelecom, one of the companies that are providing the recent CDMA technology had fired a satelite for TV service. I believe it is called DMB. I saw the quality of the channels and they are just like direct tv! they also work in subways and basements!
I hope Verizon service's service is as good as the one i got to exerience in korea. I am sooo excited to see DVB-H

maverick13

I would hope S. Korea would have GREAT coverage... considering that their land mass is 98,480 sq km versus the US at 9,629,091... so that makes it .01% of our area? I would seriously hope that you could use a cell phone in a basement over there.

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tomorrowfactory

YEa they have excellent coverage with normal phone service and their live tv service uses satelite. I think if us uses the same method i think it is possible to cover the whole U.S.

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mbcab08

Oct 5, 2005, 6:36 PM

New Phones?

Will this require new phones for VZW, or will VCAST phones work with this network feature?

Ludio

It would require a reciever in the phone supporting that type of transmission im sure.

Rich Brome

It will require a phone with DVB-H. It's a whole different technology and frequency band, so it will definitely require special hardware in the phone.

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thatchman1

Oct 5, 2005, 4:07 PM

Crown Castle

For that kind of spectrum and that many tower sites, why in the world don't I know who Crown Castle is? What are they doing today?

Rich Brome

They're a tower company. They actually own many the towers on which all of the major carriers put their regular antennas. They haven't actually had their own spectrum or put up their own antennas... until now.

wfine81

Crown Castle, don't they make those kck ass really small hamburgers?

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KevC84

Oct 5, 2005, 4:21 PM

MediaFlo

I guess that leaves the door open for Sprint to go after MediaFlo. I saw a demo video that someone recorded at CTIA and it's awesome plus they can offer live video at up to 30 fps compared to the 20 fps offered by DVB-H. I was kinda hoping that Sprint would go for MediaFlo, I think it will be a much better technology anyways.

RUFF1415

Oct 5, 2005, 3:28 PM

Cool.

I love seeing Pittsburgh getting something first.

SForsyth01

RUFF1415 said:
I love seeing Pittsburgh getting something first.

I love it too. Kinda reminds me of the days in the late 90's when Pittsburgh got all of the newest cell phones first because we were rated the...
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