More TV over Telia mobile phones
Moving image services over mobile phones are now being launched one after the other. As of today, Telia subscribers can watch different programs from SVT, Sweden’s public service television broadcaster, through the Telia SurfPort portal. The service is being offered free of charge during the rest of 2005. Later this autumn, Telia will launch even more television programming over mobiles.
In the beginning, Telia subscribers in Sweden can watch around ten different SVT programs on their mobile phones, although the range of programming will be gradually expanded. Telia and SVT are initially focusing mainly on news shows, such as “Rapport” and weather reports, but also the movie reviews of the “Filmkrönikan” program, including clips from different films, and the latest segments from food cooking shows. Subscribers will also be able to watch programs from SVT’s archive, such as “En stjärna föds” (“A Star is Born”), a show featuring documentaries about promising young athletes who later became Sweden’s greatest sports legends. During the autumn Telia will release a number of new services for viewing moving images over mobile phones in Sweden. These will include live news broadcasts, sports events, photos from newspapers and magazines, video news clips, and special broadcasts from large public events. Telia’s mobile subscribers can already watch TV4 and the music channels “The Voice” and “Star” on their phones. Another new feature this year is the possibility to follow Sweden’s elite ice hockey series on Telia mobiles. This service is just like the television broadcasts that Telia subscribers could watch from the 2004 Summer Olympics on their mobile handsets. A 3G-enabled handset is usually required to fully utilize Telia’s mobile television service in Sweden. These mobile phones are growing in popularity and are now appearing in the “top ten” lists of best-selling mobiles that Telia presents each month. More than 600,000 Telia subscribers have SIM cards that work directly in a 3G handset.