Bringing Free Television To Phones In America

ideonexus writes "South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005, but American mobile carriers are struggling to offer clunky streaming video using Qualcomm's proprietary MediaFLO system for an additional monthly fee and excessive bandwidth demands. Now, with America having gone digital in June, if Mobile carriers were to have ATSC M/H (advanced television systems committee — mobile/handheld) television-tuner chips built into their handsets it sounds like we could enjoy free TV on our cell phones too; however, these companies have already invested a great deal of money adapting their networks to Qualcomm's format and Qualcomm is considering becoming a mobile television distributor itself."

Comments

Dollars and nonsense.

[LostCluster]

Let's see... as non-cellphone devices, FLO TV costs $250 for the 7-inch LCD TV at Best Buy, and then you get 6 months free after which you pay about $15/month.

An ATSC-based portable LCD of the same size costs $100 at Best Buy, and of course has no monthly fees because ATSC is broadcast in the clear.

Now, the FLO TV product has an advantage because what you're paying for isn't just the broadcast networks, but also a few "basic cable" channels such as ESPN, CNN, CNBC, Nick, and Comedy Central. It's a case of you get what you pay for.

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article claims it costs US carriers $240/hour to stream live TV to a user, per user! And yet they charge $15/month ... SOMEBODY is lying

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[Grizzley9]

Also, I already get live TV on my iPhone, any channel I get on my PC at home. OrbLive app allows me to stream it from my home PC over wifi (and earlier versions over 3G/Edge). Course you can stream other things as well but Live TV works rather well, cable or broadcast.

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[HenryKoren]

Yes, and that somebody is you, because the article makes no mention of that (despite other lies it contains).

Other lies:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1498728&cid=30661924

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[FatdogHaiku]

The article claims it costs US carriers $240/hour to stream live TV to a user, per user! And yet they charge $15/month ... SOMEBODY is lying

They make up the difference in volume...

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[Daengbo]

Just about every phone but the bottom of the barrel comes with TV in Thailand, and yes, the phones just pick it up off of the air. Same for Korea (called DVB there, I think). Heck, my Korean GPS had DVB.

As usual, American companies are holding back progress in order to line their pockets. As an American, I'm ashamed of how far behind the pack we are.

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[Daengbo]

Oh, yeah, and US$50 will get me a dual-SIM phone with TV, unlocked. (Of course, there are very few phones sold locked in Thailand since the carrier will just lose money when the phone is immediately unlocked and the customer disappears, never paying a single bill.)

Re:Dollars and nonsense.

[ars]

Not per user. $240/hour TOTAL to all users. Why would you need to stream TV individually?

(OK, I don't actually know that for sure, but it's what made sense to me.)

Dedicated devices do it better.

[LostCluster]

Seeing it's taking forever to get FM radio added to the iPhone, why would they want to put in a digital TV tuner of either kind? FLO TV has a prototype of an add-on device that could use the iPhone as a screen... but it's a mess of a brick bigger than the iPhone. ATSC TV on the iPhone seems kind of pointless when you can buy a $100 TV that comes with its own 7-inch screen.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[Lumpy]

Only because apple does not want to add it. Nokia phones have had FM radio WITH RDS forever.

Honestly, just because the iPhone does not have it does not mean that others dont have it, or have had it a long time already.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[EzInKy]

Only because apple does not want to add it. Nokia phones have had FM radio WITH RDS forever.

Honestly, just because the iPhone does not have it does not mean that others dont have it, or have had it a long time already.

My thoughts exactly. I was shocked to learn just now that iPhone doesn't have FM radio. Certainly though it must have some system built into it to receive off the air broadcasts so its users can keep abreast of important local news, right?

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[jameskojiro]

FM Radio, there is NO App for that.....

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[filthpickle]

Shocked? Really? People that aren't stuck in certain work environments still listen to FM radio? Now I am shocked!

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[ihavnoid]

Yes, maybe you are shocked, but me and my wife agreed to remove TVs from our home. We found that TVs started to waste our time too much, and all we were watching were junky TV shows which had near-to-zero value on us anyway.

Instead, now we listen to FM radio. At least, we can do something more productive while listening to the radio.

And somehow, I am wasting my 'productive' time writing comments on Slashdot. Great.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[LostCluster]

Well, CBS Radio and Clear Channel both have streaming radio apps. I've got to wonder if an HD Radio chip in the iPhone would get most of that traffic off of AT&T's network...

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[Grizzley9]

There are numerous internet radio apps that can "tune" local stations as many modern stations broadcast over the net as well, at least in my market.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[EzInKy]

NPR for me, but really aren't the benefits of such a feature in smart communication devices pretty obvious? Personally I think it should be mandatory that all radio devices should be able to tune to local public information stations in the event of an emergency.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[Buelldozer]

That's hilarious! My wife got a new LG Chocolate Touch for Christmas and IT has an FM radio built into it!

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[joocemann]

They don't have to put it on the iPhone. They are talking about FUTURE phones, not YOUR phone.

We don't all own an iphone. Matter of fact, my HTC Touch Pro is way better than an iPhone. If we were hanging out together in person we could compare and I could show you why.

There are other phones out there, you know. I really hope the concept of the mobile pc doesn't go the way of the Kleenex --- where everyone calls a face tissue a kleenex --- where everyone calls a mobile pc phone an iphone.... eeeewww.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[filthpickle]

Point taken.

I'm not arguing the emergency thing...but in a non-emergency I can listen to a preposterous number of NPR stations from around the country.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[SScorpio]

Thank you for sharing that information about not having TV. Perhaps you could meet up with this guy and do productive things together. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[FrankieBaby1986]

From what i've read, the iPod Touch's radio chip includes an FM tuner. Perhaps the iPhone does too?

Now, as to whether it's for hardware or software reason's its not functional (or if if even exists), contact Apple.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[HybridJeff]

Wow, I don't have a TV either, lets be friends! (I do download shows off the internet, I ope that doesn't disqualify me).

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[TheSync]

They don't have to put it on the iPhone.

But it will be on your iPhone. ATSC-M/H is an IP based system, and there will be a device called Tivit that will receive an ATSC-M/H IP stream, and rebroadcast it over WiFi to your iPhone, Touch, PC, etc.

Re:Dedicated devices do it better.

[joocemann]

Matter of fact, my HTC Touch Pro is way better than an iPhone. If we were hanging out together in person we could compare and I could show you why.

No, actually, your phone runs Windows Mobile.
Your phone is trash.

Actually it runs a modded WM, and it runs awesome. But, you wouldn't know because your prejudice keeps you from the actual experience.

Why not?

[girlintraining]

Why not? We already have hundreds of channels of "high def" cable TV that's usually 480p and so compressed that it looks like hammered sh**. It'll probably look better on a cell phone where fine detail can't be picked up.

Re:Why not?

[InsaneProcessor]

You must be watching AT&T Uverse.

Re:Why not?

[girlintraining]

decoding the broadcast ATSC signal takes a rather beefy CPU, so I wonder if decoding it (even in hardware) might not consume a lot of power for a cellphone.

Mobile reception of ATSC signals is difficult because of the larger antenna size required and because phase shifting of the signal and such can corrupt it, even at vehicle speeds. The only solution that makes sense is multicast OTA by the mobile provider. 288x352 @ 25 FPS, with a mono 22Khz audio can be reproduced at a decent quality at maybe 100KB/s, so 20 channels of broadcast TV on a mobile link would consume maybe 2MB/s, which is relatively low.

Why?

[InsaneProcessor]

A mobile phone is a throw away cheap device that is issed for two way communications with another person. A TV is something you watch from your recliner in the living room with a beer in your hand (or wine). The two should not have and will not have anything in common. This is just a stupid idea and anyone buying into this is just flushing money down the toilet (which also appears to be included in this phone).

Re:Why?

[MichaelSmith]

The places where this has worked have high population density and less personal space. A teenager can watch TV in their room without disturbing their parents. People can watch TV on public transport. That kind of thing. It is less attractive in countries with low population densities.

Re:Why?

[Lumpy]

an iPhone costs as much has a 42" plasma. Yes real prices. you cant count the subsidized pricing that AT&T gives out. I bought a 42" Pioneer plasma this xmas for $590.00. That is how much a iPhone costs if you buy it outright.

So a TV is as cheap as a throwaway cellphone.

Re:Why?

[SnarfQuest]

So, you're saying that a cell phone is like a beer can?

Maybe that's why I can never get my cell phone to work, and why I always have beer all over myself.

Re:Why?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

A mobile phone is a throw away cheap device

I still don't understand this mindset. A mobile phone, bought without a contract, is often upwards of a few hundred dollars here in America. Purchased with a contract, it comes at the price of about $50 with two years worth of monthly payments that you can't get out of without paying, you guessed it, a few hundred dollars. Nowhere in my book does that price put mobile phones in the range of cheap throw away devices. Cheap throw away devices are things like paper towels and flashlights that run under the $20 mark and are trivial to find and purchase just about anywhere. Something as expensive as a mobile phone seems to me like a long term investment. I put a lot of thought into what kind of phone I am going to purchase, what kind of capability it should have, and how much I am willing to pay for that capability. Mobile phone purchases require research and awareness and sometimes even a bit of silver-tongued bartering on the buyer's part. That doesn't seem like a throw away device to me.

I really wish this idea and similar ideas regarding things like computers and video game consoles would cease already. I am sick of having to save up for new multiple hundred dollar purchases every two or three new years because designers and companies refuse to design a product that lasts more than a couple years. That's not to say that I don't see value in upgrading for some new exciting feature. Sure, if a video game console provides a whole new interface or something cool like that, I won't have a problem dropping coin on it. Having to buy a new Xbox 360 every couple years just because a company won't put any money into quality engineer is frustrating though.

The same thing goes with mobile phones. If a company adds some cool new feature, like cameras, to their phone, I will drop coin on buying it if I value the feature. Paying to constantly replace a simple phone that I use primarily for texting or talking on every couple of years seems absurd however. This is especially true when I need to buy a new phone for no other reason than it has problems interfacing with a new battery or because the screen just magically 'wears out.'

I know that wasn't the point of your post, but I don't consider purchases of a few hundred dollars whimsical or cheap. I really wish tech companies would stop pushing these items on us like they were cheap throw away toilet paper to be replaced in a dozen months. I want something that lasts if I am going to buy it damn it. Hell, I am riding a 31 year old motorcycle that functions just fine today. I would be stoked if I could get mobile phone that could do the same....

On a side note, I can also use a land-line telephone that is 31 years old today. Our culture seems to have changed quite a bit when it comes to quality engineering.

Re:Why?

[LostCluster]

Okay, not quite a tilt, but the pinball machine is being rocked quite a bit to get that comparison.

Plasma TVs are practically having a going out of business sale lately because California set energy standards for TVs at just below what plasma can do. As usually happens, when California regulates something, national distributors want one product they can take everywhere so the regulation becomes a de facto national standard.

Re:Why?

[MrEricSir]

Why? It's a scam to sell more reading glasses, obviously.

Re:Why?

[RobertM1968]

Funnily, my mobile phone costs as much as a decent sized TV and for good reason.

While you may buy cheap mobile phones, more people are opting for expensive smartphones such as the plethora of Android phones out there or an iPhone. Battery life not withstanding, I would have no problems with TV being available on my phone.

Re:Why?

[tepples]

A mobile phone, bought without a contract, is often upwards of a few hundred dollars here in America.

Not with TracFone or Virgin.

Re:Why?

[adolf]

Indeed.

Virgin Mobile is currently -- in the US, at least -- selling Kyocera TNT phones for about $15 on their website, and they've typically got similar deals available cash-and-carry at places like Wal-Mart. No contract, contact information, or anything else required except for a bit of cash.

Re:Why?

[maxume]

Or T-Mobile (they sell a couple of $20 prepaid phones and a few others that are less than $50).

Re:Why?

[dangitman]

So a TV is as cheap as a throwaway cellphone.

I can't say I've ever seen someone throw their iPhone away.

Re:Why?

[FlyingBishop]

While I agree in principle, you're missing the overall cost of service. Since the overall cost of service usually dwarfs the cost of the device, it makes sense that the phone is a throwaway device.

On the other hand, with a superphone, at least the current generation, the cost of the device is almost 30% or so the lifetime cost of service, so it makes sense to hold on to it.

Re:Why?

[pommiekiwifruit]

A mobile phone, bought without a contract, is often upwards of a few hundred dollars here in America.

That is because mobile phones are one of the few things (along with healthcare) where Americans get a raw deal compared to the rest of the world.

Most things (rent, food, gadgets) are cheaper in the USA but it seems phones and healthcare are not.

The UK normally is an expensive country (gadgets cost twice the US price) but you can get a "pay as you go" phone (no contract) for £8.97 which is $14 - including tax and delivery.

So you can see why teenagers just throw one into the river and get a new one without thinking much about it.

God knows why phones are more expensive and so lacking in features over there in the USA - the healthcare is less of a mystery (from conversations I have had, USians are happy that their health care is overly expensive as long as that means that immigrants don't get treated).

Re:Why?

[apoc.famine]

It all depends on your phone, and what you use it for. My phone is a cheap, throw-away device. It cost $15. I have a list of family and friends on it, it makes calls, and it receives them. I average about 2 texts a month, so it has a normal keypad.
 
In short, it's the mobile version of my land-line with the important numbers scrawled on a sheet of paper and tacked to the wall above it.
 
Cost? About the same as my old land-line.
 
Not everyone wants a camera-tablet-netbook-gps-phone. I have good versions of all of those already. When one goes bad, or I want to upgrade one of them, I do.
 
I feel as you do that the crap hardware that's being put out is a travesty. But the god-damn rip-offs that are cell phone plans are far more onerous. I went pre-paid 8 months ago, and I'm in no way sorry I did. Every 6 months or so I drop $100 on my account. Yes, that's about $200 a year for cell service, for how much I use it. Pick a phone with a data plan, and you're looking at triple that, minimum.
 
I have good quality, well researched hardware for everything but one piece of equipment: My phone. It 's the most likely to get crushed, lost, dropped in water, etc. Since I'm working with an account with a balance, it doesn't matter what phone I have - when this one dies, I'll hit the mall and have a new one with the same number in a half hour, for all of $15-$20.
 
It's even BETTER than a land line!

Re:Why?

[szilagyi]

I used to think like you. I used mobile phones until I moved somewhere without coverage or Verizon decided I needed an upgrade and started dropping calls randomly. I replaced their batteries when they wore out after three years.

But, it turns out that, once you have kids, every device is a throwaway device! I'm on my third PS2 and had to replace a laptop this year.

So it turns out the electronics manufacturers are just supporting family values, and we are agreeing by buying their products.

Re:Why?

[b1t r0t]

Not all "urban" areas have super-high population density. There's a big difference between a city like NYC with lots of high-rise apartments, brownstones, and mass transit, and the big cities in Texas, where most of the population is in neighborhoods with houses and yards, and people drive themselves to work.

If you're taking mass-transit, you have the time to do stuff on your way to and back from work. If you're driving, you don't. Not that watching live television on a cell phone is such a great thing anyhow. Sure, you might get some news shows in the morning, but on your way home you'll get Judge Judy and TMZ. You're better off dumping something from your DVR to a handheld device or laptop before you leave.

And this isn't even considering how well ATSC's modulation will or won't work in a mobile environment. From what I've heard, not all that great. (Not that Japan's 1seg is said to be all that great either when your receiver is moving.)

Re:Why?

[mcgrew]

A mobile phone is a throw away cheap device that is issed for two way communications with another person.

A five hundred dollar device used for two way communication is NOT cheap; a POTS phone is ten bucks. And my phone has email that I can send to more than one recipient at a time, so it's not two way communications ONLY (and it's a relatively cheap phone). You can buy a small TV for less than I paid for my phone.

A TV is something you watch from your recliner in the living room with a beer in your hand (or wine).

When I was a teenager I worked at a drive-in theater. When I worked the ticket booth I kept my twelve inch Panasonic and a book or two to keep boredom away after the cars stopped coming in. You'ld have a hard time watching a TV with a screen that small from a recliner sitting across the room.

I think the idea of a phone also acting as a TV and MP3 plsyer and FM radio and ebook reader is a good idea; less junk to carry around with you. Pocket space is pretty limited in most clothing.

It will be a long time...

[Xeno man]

It won't happen until a manufacture decides it needs a bigger edge in the market and offers it in their most expensive phone. Only then will other phone makers device to add it in their most expensive devices. Then finally another manufacturer will start adding it in their cheaper phones just to flood the market with it.

Free TV in Aus

[dov_0]

It seems different providers in Aus just make TV available over 3G. No stress about it here.

Re:Free TV in Aus

[MichaelSmith]

It seems different providers in Aus just make TV available over 3G. No stress about it here.

Thats news to me. How do you access it?

Re:Free TV in Aus

[VoltageX]

It's not free - Three used to offer the cricket on certain post-paid plans.

Re:Free TV in Aus

[dov_0]

Mine is with Optus. Nothing is free on Three. They're blood-sucking scoundrels.

Re:Free TV in Aus

[dov_0]

I just go to OptusZoo and it's there.

I see...

[Monkeedude1212]

South Korea, China, [...] and Japan

So all the countries that have excess Anime... Makes sense! Smaller file size and faster streaming after compressing the video to use only an 8 bit colour-stream, which hardly ruins the cartoon!

I'm kidding. Of course. Calm down.

Re:I see...

[Rayonic]

Not to mention the low framecount making the compression even better! Heck, they probably use an animated gif with some kind of synchronized audio.

Re:I see...

[Daniel_Staal]

Come on, I've watched DBZ: Why would you need an animated gif? And a straight audio loop would do just fine.

Re:I see...

[rdnetto]

I know you're kidding, but a 1080p episode of anime in x264 is around 300-400MB, which is roughly twice the size of live action content in SD.

Careful what you ask for

[Locke2005]

South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005 which hasn't improved their driving at all!

Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[Anonymous Coward]

thinks it is better without. Americans don't want government "interfering". They claim the market will decide the best approach. It does not. It picks best short term profitability for one company (Qualcom in this case). Europe requires cellphone to be interchangable across networks, America lets cell providers each use their own scheme. You can get better cell phones and features in India then America because they follow a standard and their is a bigger market. For the US and Canada (I am Canadian), push the governments to dictate cell phone providers need to use an open common standard for all cell phone services (copy Europe's standard).

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[mooingyak]

Europe, Japan... Use standards. America thinks it is better without. Americans don't want government "interfering". They claim the market will decide the best approach. It does not. It picks best short term profitability for one company (Qualcom in this case). Europe requires cellphone to be interchangable across networks, America lets cell providers each use their own scheme. You can get better cell phones and features in India then America because they follow a standard and their is a bigger market. For the US and Canada (I am Canadian), push the governments to dictate cell phone providers need to use an open common standard for all cell phone services (copy Europe's standard).

Regulating technology only works if you can keep current, and people are honest. Otherwise you end up with one of two scenarios:

1) No one can innovate because they're stuck with an out of date standard that used to be great but doesn't cover some of the newer things that can be done.
2) The regulating committee is controlled by the industry and ends up setting up regulations that screw the consumer.

I'm not saying these things are inevitable, just that many Americans are fine with the current situation when the alternative includes those risks.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[thetoadwarrior]

What a load of shit. Americans are getting shafted on mobile phones. Your plans are expensive, you pay to receive calls most if not all instances and your phones don't work with ever provider.

Just image if your TV and land line phone was like that or that houses had different electrical sockets depending on who built it.

Standards are not socialism, it's common fucking sense because as clearly proven by the mobile phone market in the US that a free market with no standards has left the US in an awful state.

You're not any more free in the US because you're letting mobile companies shaft you.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[thetoadwarrior]

Saying everyone has to use the same technology doesn't say which technology they have to use and quite frankly the state of mobile phones is much better in areas that enforce standards.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[dakameleon]

Americans don't want government "interfering". They claim the market will decide the best approach. It does not. It picks best short term profitability for one company (Qualcom in this case).

The ATSC is not a government organisation - it's a consortium of commercially-interested companies agreeing on a standard. The US government has never mandated a particular standard to be implemented, merely ratified, through the FCC, the most popular one for wide-spread use. This is an example of the market in action - and what the cellphone carriers do with that has also been left up to the market, though this isn't operating at peak efficiency for consumers, it is likely producing fat profits for the cellphone companies and Qualcomm.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[pommiekiwifruit]

But here you have the situation where all the existing innovation (let alone future innovation) is disabled for the American market because the carriers don't like the consumers having more features unless they get a cut.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[mooingyak]

Saying everyone has to use the same technology doesn't say which technology they have to use

Saying everyone has to use the same technology without specifying what is useless.

Company A uses one tech.
Company B uses another.
Company C uses something different.

You say "Hey! All you guys need to use the same stuff." To which all three companies respond "Great! They can switch to ours!"

If you want any realistic results you need to specify exactly which technology they're all using.

quite frankly the state of mobile phones is much better in areas that enforce standards.
I'm not trying to argue that the way it's done in the US is better, I'm suggesting why there aren't more Americans pushing for regulation.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[mooingyak]

But here you have the situation where all the existing innovation (let alone future innovation) is disabled for the American market because the carriers don't like the consumers having more features unless they get a cut.

So far yes. I'm hoping to see a player enter the market who is willing to be just a carrier and not give a damn what your phone does. Not optimistic mind you, but hopeful.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[gangien]

What a load of shit. Americans are getting shafted on mobile phones. Your plans are expensive, you pay to receive calls most if not all instances and your phones don't work with ever provider.

right a load of shit? hahaha. and i get modded flamebait. OK then. Who determines plans are expensive? HUH??? you do? ok then don't pay for it. pretty simple, basic economics 101 stuff. I'd rather it was cheaper, but in time the prices will fall.

Just image if your TV and land line phone was like that or that houses had different electrical sockets depending on who built it.

just imagine how people wouldn't buy TVs then. and certainly not multiple TVs in a house.

Standards are not socialism, it's common fucking sense because as clearly proven by the mobile phone market in the US that a free market with no standards has left the US in an awful state.

Forcing someone to comply with a standard is socialism. Government ownership/control is socialism, and that is obviously exerting control, albeit somewhat minor. imagine the government forcing every webpage to comply with some shitty standard. OH wait i can already hear it, how great that'd be and how pages would work in eveyr browser and such. But it'd slow down innovation at the least. It might make other things impossible. It would certainly cost people a lot of money for the time they'd have to spend making sure their webpages are compliant. It would probably put some webpages out of commission. These are the unseen costs and side affects. And all this is assuming the standard was good.

You're not any more free in the US because you're letting mobile companies shaft you.

The mobile companies are not shafting people. people are CHOOSING to get cell phones. Do you understand how capitalism works? I would not buy and pay for a cell phone, unless it was worth my money. Thus companies would not profit if i didn't make that choice. I've made the choice it is, like many people.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[Cimexus]

Forcing someone to comply with a standard is socialism.

WTF? I think that the above electrical socket analogy is a decent one. Even in the US you have a standard electrical socket. Not to mention a standard mains voltage. And even the US has laws enforcing that (requiring builders to use that kind of socket, and power companies to supply that voltage of power). That is just common sense, not socialism. I think you keep using this word without knowing what it actually means.

Oh and incidentally, it's not "every website", but US laws already require all government and corporate websites (and most commercially available software) to confirm to certain accessibility standards. In fact these standards are known as being some of the strictest in the world. Companies can face stiff fines if they attempt to sell stuff in the US without conforming to these.

There are heaps of standards that the US follows. At the moment, cell phones are not one of them. There is nothing inherently more socialist about enforcing a standard for cell phones, as there is for enforcing a standard type of electrical socket, a standard efficiency rating for appliances, standard nation-wide road rules ... etc etc.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[Cimexus]

quite frankly the state of mobile phones is much better in areas that enforce standards.

I'll say.

I remember the first time I travelled to the US (which was in 2001). As a business traveller I had been all over the place - SE Asia, most of Europe, Australia and NZ etc. And my standard, average (at the time) 2.5G GSM phone just worked in all those places. The plane landed, I turned it on, and within 1-2 minutes it had connected, usually followed by a "welcome to $country!" text message shortly thereafter.

Then I went to the US and there was no coverage at all. Of course back then, there was NO GSM network at all in the US. I was there 2 months with no functioning phone! Yes, I should have researched it before I went there, but seriously, it worked everywhere else, (even in third-world countries).

Things are a bit better now ... AT&T and T-mobile at least use 3G/HSDPA/GSM, but the coverage of the 'old style' American networks (CDMA/TDMA/analogue) still seems to be better once you get away from the east and west coasts.

Japan used to be a bit of an outlier too back in the day (although at least it still provided a GSM network for visitors in the major cities), but these days is pretty standard. Most of the world has settled on HSDPA/3G.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[gangien]

WTF? I think that the above electrical socket analogy is a decent one. Even in the US you have a standard electrical socket. Not to mention a standard mains voltage. And even the US has laws enforcing that (requiring builders to use that kind of socket, and power companies to supply that voltage of power). That is just common sense, not socialism. I think you keep using this word without knowing what it actually means.

If it was really common sense the US comapnies wouldn't need to do it. There's really no argument here to support you. Other than you think all hell would have broken loose if nothing were to be forced. Yet, the free market always seems to solve things. Often times, in better ways. ANd BTW I've looked up the definition of socialism many times, and i've stated it in the above. Government controlling is socialism, like i said a minor form of it, but that's what it really is.

I'm sorry if that offends people, but the reality is the government controlling things rarely works out like people think it does. Whether its hardcore communism or softer forms in europe and the US, there are almost always unintended consequences and unseen costs.

Oh and incidentally, it's not "every website", but US laws already require all government and corporate websites (and most commercially available software) to confirm to certain accessibility standards. In fact these standards are known as being some of the strictest in the world. Companies can face stiff fines if they attempt to sell stuff in the US without conforming to these.

to see software to the US government, yes, there are rules like that. To sell any software? I really doubt that's the case. Which in the first case is fine, they are a customer and they are demanding something of a supplier. That's fine. If they were to demand every page everywhere comply that's not fine.

There are heaps of standards that the US follows. At the moment, cell phones are not one of them. There is nothing inherently more socialist about enforcing a standard for cell phones, as there is for enforcing a standard type of electrical socket, a standard efficiency rating for appliances, standard nation-wide road rules ... etc etc.

Let's go to wikipedia: Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended.

I don't quite see how you can say that the government forcing a private company to do something isn't socialism.

There are heaps of standards that the US follows. At the moment, cell phones are not one of them. There is nothing inherently more socialist about enforcing a standard for cell phones, as there is for enforcing a standard type of electrical socket, a standard efficiency rating for appliances, standard nation-wide road rules ... etc etc.

there are many standards i'm sure. You think all these things are needed and they're really not. You know what gets you a decent selection of produce to shop from at the grocery store? It's not the government. It's competition. competition for profit. It's people persuing their own self interests. And it's good for everyone involved.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[gangien]

my first line should read US companies would need to do it.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[thetoadwarrior]

Or they work together to create one that works with all three or a new one that meets each company's needs and is an improvement on the 3 previous ones.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[mooingyak]

Very likely. And when they finish they'll also give the world, free of charge, the cure for cancer that they accidentally discovered while genetically engineering pigs with wings.

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[thetoadwarrior]

right a load of shit? hahaha. and i get modded flamebait. OK then. Who determines plans are expensive? HUH??? you do? ok then don't pay for it. pretty simple, basic economics 101 stuff. I'd rather it was cheaper, but in time the prices will fall.

Who determines? It's not that hard to figure it out with the internet.

If you go back through my comments sometime in mid-December (I think) I laid out the costs to get an iPhone in the UK and US. You can get a better model iPhone for free on a contract with more minutes, unlimited internet and more texts (I think the UK deal offered unlimited texts even). The US option you had to pay something for the phone, pay a setup fee and pay more per month.

To top this off, Europe (and afaik the rest of the world) doesn't pay to receive a call either.

Unlike the US, it's unheard of to pay the same exact fee for a contract whether or not you get a new phone.

Considering Europe pays more tax and the US *still* pays more for an iPhone means you're getting fucked.

In fact in 99.9% of cases the US pays less for software and electronics so to be paying more for mobile phones means you're probably not getting the best deal.

I'm not sure why US consumers find it acceptable to pay to receive a call on a mobile but not a land line. I suspect it comes down to ignorance. No ATT and Verizon aren't going to tell you that they're giving you a raw deal because you phone won't work on every US network let alone every international network or that you're paying more than countries that pay tax out the ass. At least T-Mobile (who are international) are starting to bring over better options like paying less per month if you have your own phone. The problem is you're fucked if your old phone is incompatible.

You failed to explain why it would be awful for every mobile phone company to use the same standards as everyone else enabling you to use your phone anywhere in the world, to be able to buy any phone from around the world for the best price will some how make things worse you as a consumer.

How has your life been held back by the FCC taking on a standard like NTSC to ensure all TVs worked anywhere in the US or by them moving to ATSC?

just imagine how people wouldn't buy TVs then. and certainly not multiple TVs in a house.

Consoles aren't compatible and they're growing. If Sony, for instance, were in a position of having a near monopoly on TVs and decided to come up with some sort of connection that only works with their TV, do you think people are just going to give up TV? I don't think so.

Forcing someone to comply with a standard is socialism. Government ownership/control is socialism, and that is obviously exerting control, albeit somewhat minor. imagine the government forcing every webpage to comply with some shitty standard. OH wait i can already hear it, how great that'd be and how pages would work in eveyr browser and such. But it'd slow down innovation at the least. It might make other things impossible. It would certainly cost people a lot of money for the time they'd have to spend making sure their webpages are compliant. It would probably put some webpages out of commission. These are the unseen costs and side affects. And all this is assuming the standard was good.

If things were left up to the free market completely then there would very likely be huge chunks of the US without telephone service or even electricity. Everyone who didn't want to live in the stone age would have to live in a city. What good would that be for anyone? Being a farmer would be like being Amish and like being Amish it would be a dying breed and the US would be more dependant on other countries.

This can more or less be proven by the fact that companies like Verizon try to provide minimal phone service to the country because they don't want them as a customer and the state of broadband in the US is dire. It's all w

Re:Europe, Japan,.. Use standards,, America

[gangien]

Who determines? It's not that hard to figure it out with the internet.

If you go back through my comments sometime in mid-December (I think) I laid out the costs to get an iPhone in the UK and US. You can get a better model iPhone for free on a contract with more minutes, unlimited internet and more texts (I think the UK deal offered unlimited texts even). The US option you had to pay something for the phone, pay a setup fee and pay more per month.

To top this off, Europe (and afaik the rest of the world) doesn't pay to receive a call either.

Unlike the US, it's unheard of to pay the same exact fee for a contract whether or not you get a new phone.

Considering Europe pays more tax and the US *still* pays more for an iPhone means you're getting fucked.

In fact in 99.9% of cases the US pays less for software and electronics so to be paying more for mobile phones means you're probably not getting the best deal.

I'm not sure why US consumers find it acceptable to pay to receive a call on a mobile but not a land line. I suspect it comes down to ignorance. No ATT and Verizon aren't going to tell you that they're giving you a raw deal because you phone won't work on every US network let alone every international network or that you're paying more than countries that pay tax out the ass. At least T-Mobile (who are international) are starting to bring over better options like paying less per month if you have your own phone. The problem is you're fucked if your old phone is incompatible.

So basically you don't think the cell phone is worth paying in the US, so you shouldn't buy it. That's really my point. To have the government interfer with people making trades they want to, does no one any really good. Price controls, caps, regulations all make things worse, even if you don't see it. Why is the US more expensive? i have no clue, but i've made the determination to own a simple phone that meets my needs on a price i'm willing to pay.

You failed to explain why it would be awful for every mobile phone company to use the same standards as everyone else enabling you to use your phone anywhere in the world, to be able to buy any phone from around the world for the best price will some how make things worse you as a consumer.

I did in one of my posts, which is the unseen costs. And there's no reason to force anyone to do something, when no one is getting harmed.

How has your life been held back by the FCC taking on a standard like NTSC to ensure all TVs worked anywhere in the US or by them moving to ATSC?

I'm sure it's had some affect. You cannot just force some entity to do something different than it otherwise would, and say there will be no side affects.

Consoles aren't compatible and they're growing. If Sony, for instance, were in a position of having a near monopoly on TVs and decided to come up with some sort of connection that only works with their TV, do you think people are just going to give up TV? I don't think so.

Consoles are different than what we were talking about. And consumers have made the choice that consoles are doing fine, thus companies get rewarded with profits. Thanks to mostly unregulated competition in the tech sphere, monopolies are pretty hard to form. But even if they did, if sony did somethign that was a big enough deal, people would find alternatives. They always do.

If things were left up to the free market completely then there would very likely be huge chunks of the US without telephone service or even electricity. Everyone who didn't want to live in the stone age would have to live in a city. What good would that be for anyone? Being a farmer would be like being Amish and like being Amish it would be a dying breed and the US would be more dependant on other countries.

I really doubt that. People who lived farther away would just have to pay more to recieve the same service. Or they would deem the service uneces

Who cares?

[chaffed]

There's nothing worth watching.

Just because it's Qualcomm...

[Zigurd]

MediaFLO isn't "clunky." The FLO part stands for "Forward Link Only." That means it uses a broadcast channel downstream, so it is bandwidth-efficient for one-way content delivery. It is a Qualcomm proprietary technology, but it is not inherently less good than other DTV technologies applicable to mobile devices. MediaFLO was designed for mobile devices, so it might have advantages over some DTV standards that were not designed with mobile devices in mind.

Re:Just because it's Qualcomm...

[LostCluster]

Most standard portable TV products say to receive signal they must be stationary because any movement results in packet loss. FLO TV solves this problem simply with redundant packets.

Re:Just because it's Qualcomm...

[Kizeh]

Whatever happened to IP multicast? Quite well suited for TV streaming across any number of platforms, and as a transport layer it doesn't get much more universally standardized and accepted than that.

Re:Just because it's Qualcomm...

[Zigurd]

IP multicast would not help the last-mile issue in using mobile data for TV. MediaFLO has dedicated bandwidth for nearly all the downstream payload.

Re:Just because it's Qualcomm...

[Kizeh]

Using IP multicast only the streams that have subscribers in a given cell get streamed to that cell, and then within the cell get distributed to subscribers. QoS should be fairly trivial as the multicast stream is obviously streaming TV content. If reserved bandwidth is needed, policing can be done preventing excess users from subscribing to a stream. Trying to mimic circuit-switched reserved bandwidth chunks over a natively packet based media always strikes me as silly.

Re:No thanks.

[SnarfQuest]

But you might miss important programs, like "Who wants to marry a minimum wage construction worker 17", "Surviver 39: Let's eat some live bugs and run around naked again", "Big Brother 26: Who cares any more", "Bachelor 45: Lets have sex with Russian mail order brides", and "Bachelorette 15: Women want to have indiscriminate sex too".

How could anyone not desire to see such revolutionary important and educational television programs as these?

Canada, eh?

[kirkb]

The only thing more saddening about the US being so far behind on this stuff is the fact that here in Canada, we'll be even one or two years behind them. Probably thanks to CRTC bureaucracy and bilingual nonsense. And once we get it, there will be nothing on except CBC, because the US programming that we all want to see will be roadblocked by licensing restrictions in Canada. Just like hulu, pandora, etc...

Bottom line: in 4 years we'll be lucky enough to watch low-res, DRM'd "Beachcomber" reruns on our phones.

Re:Canada, eh?

[FrigBot]

Good one, you got it right. We do get hosed here, and to add another reason as to why that's the case, I'd submit that in general our government basically follows what the U.S. does, in terms of most things like technology. Things like bilingualism are confounding factors.

I don't know though, I'm really looking forward to watching the exploits of Relic and them on my phone. Except it won't even be complete shows, it'll be clips. Yay.

Users are not the phone-builder's customers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Phones in the US are designed to the demands of the Mobile Carriers, not the users. Given the choice of selling the users a television service, or adding a chip to the phones to the users can watch TV for free none of the Carriers is going to choose the chip. It wouldn't make any sense.

Please, Plebes

[sexconker]

Please, plebes, please choke the shitty US cell network further by watching TV on your phones in addition to all the other trivial shit you do.

Re:Please, Plebes

[camperdave]

Yes, by all means. Maybe then they'll update it to a real cellular network.

Re:Please, Plebes

[HenryKoren]

See this:

http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1498728&cid=30661924

The whole article is horribly wrong. The TV service they're speaking about does NOT use up cellular network bandwidth.

mobile carriers won't like this

[chipperdog]

It won't be wide spread because Free-TV in cell phones is lost revenue for phone companies. Why would they promote a device with a receiver in it that provides a service they may sell (VCAST style services or extra bandwidth charges)?

Re:mobile carriers won't like this

[Dynedain]

Why would they promote a device with a receiver in it that provides a service they may sell

Oh the US providers would LOVE it provided that they could lock it out and charge extra to use it.

antenna strength? in some area you need good signa

[Joe The Dragon]

antenna strength? in some area you need good signal to get tv and channel 2 HD use to be real bad with that in the past.

Not the American way

[elrous0]

In America, boradband providers only offer additional services if they can charge you for it. This "free" word you speak of will not be recognized by the American cell providers.

Re:Not the American way

[Culture20]

In America, boradband providers only offer additional services if they can charge you for it. This "free" word you speak of will not be recognized by the American cell providers.

But it's not their call. If I buy a nokia ATSC enabled phone, and I tune to a local HD channel, I'll get television. Unless I buy the phone from a cell company who removes that functionality and renables it for a monthly fee, there's nothing they can do about it.

Re:Not the American way

[danielsfca2]

Too bad about 999 out of 1000 Americans who have cell phones bought theirs from a cellphone company, and most of the carriers do cripple their handsets (especially ones that rhyme with Blurizon).

Re:Not the American way

[Culture20]

Too bad about 999 out of 1000 Americans who have cell phones bought theirs from a cellphone company, and most of the carriers do cripple their handsets (especially ones that rhyme with Blurizon).

All it takes are a few geeks to show the benefits of buying direct from manufacturer "Look, I get TV, but you don't!" and people will clamor. On my local TV news this morning, they had a spot for google's new phone, and the one thing they kept talking about was this strange concept of "unlocked" and what it meant. The anchors chatted amongst themselves afterward about how innovative the idea of freely moving your phone from one cell company to another was. Regular folk are waking up on the cell phone front, just in time for FCC/Congress to do some investigating for 2010 votes^W^Wthe people.

Re:No thanks.

[elrous0]

They should just right to the core of it and produce a show called "I'll Happily Sacrifice My Dignity For Even a Microsecond of Pseudo-Fame."

This might be of interest to everyone...

[HotBBQ]

Looks like Samsung has put a Digital TV chip into its Moment cellular device. It will be able to receive live DTV. They have a demo available at the CES. Hit up the link from Samsung.

Do we need another distraction?

[geekmux]

"South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005...

Er, I'm wondering how many of those countries have the numbers the US does, using these devices while attempting to steer 2 tons of steel down a freeway at 60MPH with 60,000 of their closest friends riding bumper to bumper? Somehow, I think the last thing we need is another visual distraction on a cell phone.

Perhaps this is one of those features that we don't go all Lemming over. Never really understood the fascination of browsing the web or watching video on a tiny-ass screen. The "because I can" cool factor usually wears off after about 20 minutes, or when you battery prematurely dies, whichever comes first.

Re:Do we need another distraction?

[mattack2]

Never really understood the fascination of browsing the web or watching video on a tiny-ass screen.

Fine, it's not for you. But it amazes me that I can (as a passenger, of course) be in a car going down the freeway and still browse the web to search for something (e.g. find an answer to something we were talking about, etc.). While you definitely do do a lot of zooming & pinching on the screen, I think such "tiny-ass screens" can be amazingly useful. (Disclaimer: I have a work provided phone and I personally wouldn't pay the cell phone costs, since I used a prepaid phone before.. but if I could pay a much lower fee for JUST cell phone web access when WiFi wasn't available, I would very seriously consider it.)

Re:Do we need another distraction?

[phoenix_rizzen]

Sit on a bus, subway, train, back seat for 20-60 minutes, and you'll discover just how convenient it is having mobile browsing, or video, or games, or whatever in your pocket.

Flash

[Enderandrew]

I thought some have suggested this was a big reason why Flash has been ported to other platforms, but isn't on the iPhone. AT&T has publicly said it, but there are theories AT&T is terrified of what would happen to data usage if you could stream video to the iPhone via Flash from any number of sites.

Not to mention it would hurt iTunes video sales to the same devices.

Re:Flash

[swb]

Doesn't Flash fall under the no-scripting-languages-allowed rubric? Or since Apple controls the browser this doesn't matter?

Re:Flash

[mjwx]

thought some have suggested this was a big reason why Flash has been ported to other platforms, but isn't on the iPhone.

There is no flash on the iphone because Apple cant control what you do with flash. There really is no other reason, it's the same with mulit-tasking, the HW and SW are perfectly capable but are artificially locked in order to gain greater control.

Re:Flash

[danielsfca2]

Flash kills cpu and thus battery life. It's a fact. I really doubt it's some sinister plot by Apple. They can't control what you do with a web browser either, and they don't care.

Hell, they even approved the Rhapsody app. In case you didn't notice, Rhapsody competes directly with iTunes.

A love affair with the automobile

[tepples]

The low population density argument is overblown when it comes to the United States.

But the public transport argument does. Unlike parts of Japan and the EU, the United States has a love affair with the automobile, which requires each adult commuter's full attention for the entire commute.

Re:A love affair with the automobile

[tepples]

The "Citilink" bus system in Fort Wayne, Indiana, doesn't run at night, on Saturday evenings, or on Sundays. If your city's public transportation is anything like Fort Wayne's, and you work the night shift, the Saturday evening shift, or the Sunday shift, you still need a car to get to work. This means you still have to pay for maintenance and insurance no matter how much or how little you drive your car.

Re:A love affair with the automobile

[Daengbo]

Last year, my taxi driver was playing solitaire on his GPS while whipping through 5 o'clock traffic. Almost everyone in SK watches TV while driving. Terrifying.

Do we really need MORE TV? And in public?

[moxley]

So now we get to overhear 'lowest-common-denominator-TV' addicted assholes actually watching their shows, like "The Hills," and "Jersey Shore," in public, on the train, at the grocery store? Kill me now.

Sports fans foaming at the mouth and screaming over some perfect or missed play...

Idiots trying to watch TV and drive (I was kidding a bit before, but this is the one that really scares me).

Don't get me wrong, I love technology and can see certain times where this might be interesting, and I am all for personal freedom - but I am not enjoying the thought of some of the practicalities of life with widespread adoption of such a system.

$50 TV

[Rick Richardson]

Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:26:53 +0000 (UTC)

Thank you for ordering from Target.com.

The following items were included in this shipment:

  1 Digital Labs 7" Portable D $49.99 1 $49.99

                              Item Subtotal: $49.99
                                        Shipping: $6.92
                      Promotion Applied: -$5.00
                              Free Shipping: -$6.92
                                      Sales Tax: $3.27
                                  ORDER TOTAL: $48.26

Re:$50 TV

[LostCluster]

You caught a pre-holiday sale that isn't available right now. Still... It does show how these things are getting better and cheaper constantly.

Economist fail on TFA. Media FLO not streamed!

[HenryKoren]

The article says: "the “V Cast” and “Mobile TV” television services offered by Verizon and AT&T respectively are streamed jerkily across their cellular networks."

This is false, This article is very misleading. V-Cast TV and AT&T Mobile TV are Qualcomm's MediaFLO service re-branded. These are broadcast-quality digital signals that come over what previously was the Analog TV channel 55. These are NOT streamed, and are completely separate from the Cellular network. See the MediaFLO entry on Wikipedia for confirmation of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaFLO

Slashdot mods: you should correct this article summary because it contains utterly false misinformation.

Re:Economist fail on TFA. Media FLO not streamed!

[BosstonesOwn]

They are both ip based , which is evident on the bill , if you ever screw up and use it on a phone without the data plan.

Re:Economist fail on TFA. Media FLO not streamed!

[HenryKoren]

No, they are NOT IP based. The only thing that goes over the IP network is the billing and decryption key exchange.

FLO TV / VCast TV/ AT&T Mobile TV is an encoded digital signal that goes out over UHF. I have personally toured FLO TV's headquarters, am friends with employees that work there, and know what I'm talking about. The TV signals are taken from the network feeds and encoded at FLO TV's San Diego headquarters, then transmitted out to dual satellite uplinks. The transmitters in in the local markets have KU-band dishes that get the FLO TV signal and broadcast it on their antennas out over what once was TV channel 55.

Get your facts straight.

Re:No thanks.

[hvm2hvm]

I agree with you except for the "educational" part. TV is not supposed to be educational, or it shouldn't anyway. At least not the way it looks like now. In the '90s the cartoons were not made for braindead children and channels like Discovery were not made of consumerist bullshit centered around the average idiot.

Those shows were actually good (if watched a few hours a day) but we shouldn't say TV should be educational. It's not a good medium, not for important stuff. Sure, it's nice to give kids a little imagination as long as there is a responsible parent near telling them that choking your dog is not funny in real life. It's also nice to show some cool stuff you can do with science or that you can in see in space/<insert niche scientific domain here> but not if average Joe understands it wrong and starts rumors of how scientists plan to take over the world with the LHC, or he blows up himself while putting mentos in coke, or starts a church trying to stop the evil demon asteroid coming in 2012 to kill us all.

TV is mainly entertainment and usually low quality stuff. If that's what the dumb masses want, that's what it's on.

Say hello (again) to the retractable antenna.

[chocomilko]

I lived in South Korea from 2006 to 2007. DMB was prevalent back then; the one thing that I thought was really odd about the whole setup is that the DMB-enabled phones always had HUGE retractable antennae.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it was easy to pretend that the guy sitting across from you was trying to figure out his piece-of-shit cell phone from 10 years ago, rather than watching TV.

Oh, and for the record, the ONLY way I would get a dropped call is if I stepped into an elevator. In the mountains, in the valleys, hundreds of feet underground on the subway -- perfect reception.

No, ATSC won't cut it

[nsayer]

TFA mentions ATSC M/H because the actual ATSC specification performs relatively poorly in the face of doppler and dynamic multipath. ATSC works just fine if you put up a proper outdoor antenna, but if you just use the whip antenna built into a portable TV, it sucks.

P.s. I am one of the only /.ers who owns and operates his own ATSC transmitter. It should be installed and operational sometime this month (yes, it's a bit late).

Re:No thanks.

[The End Of Days]

In the '90s the cartoons were not made for braindead children and channels like Discovery were not made of consumerist bullshit centered around the average idiot.

Yeah, they were. Everything on TV has pretty much been brain-numbing garbage since TV was invented.

What I'm trying to say is it's not your lawn, so quit telling people to get off it.

I remember when a cell phone was just a phone.

[hamburgler007]

Mind you, I'm not knocking all smartphones, I myself own an iphone (which I have mixed feelings towards). But the unfortunate trend for the last couple of years in the US has been to focus on feature rich phones while doing little to improve the call quality, which is the primary function of the device. Worse yet, all the basic cell phone plans are more expensive now just to subsidize the smart phones sold under contract now. I am an iphone owner, but I am considering just getting a basic cell phone that offers good battery life and call quality. I can live without mobile email and applications I will never use (I do realize email is a requirement for a lot of folks). PS can anyone recommend a gsm phone that meets the above description?

Re:I remember when a cell phone was just a phone.

[nsayer]

So, apart from improving network bandwidth and availability (which I will concede is needed), in what way would you improve call quality?

In other words, are you asking for more than simply insuring that enough data flows in and out of the phone so that the caller doesn't sound like Charlie Brown's teacher?

Re:I remember when a cell phone was just a phone.

[mattack2]

If you don't use many minutes, you don't need a "plan" at all. Just get a prepaid phone..

http://www.cellguru.net/prepaid_compare.htm

Re:I remember when a cell phone was just a phone.

[hamburgler007]

I think you nailed the biggest ones. My biggest gripes are dropped calls and weak signals in NYC, and no signal in areas where other phones on the same carrier get a signal. Granted I realize part of the problem is the phone, and the other the network.

Re:I remember when a cell phone was just a phone.

[hamburgler007]

Unfortunately I use enough minutes where it is probably worth it to have a plan. Most of the prepaids suffer from many of the problems I described in my last post too.

Re:No thanks.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I think it has less to do with what the masses want and more to do with what is cheap to produce. The masses know TV is crap. Most people simply don't care enough to do anything about it.

Yawn

[alcmaeon]

I don't watch HD TV for free on my 50" LCD, why would I watch crappy quality for a fee (any fee) on a mobile phone?

Re:Yawn

[nedlohs]

And you are the only person in the universe. If you wouldn't want something then why would anyone!

Re:No thanks.

[A nonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm a luddite.

Is luddite "I know what's good for other people" in busybody-speak?

If you don't like it, don't watch it. If you don't like it and it doesn't harm you, it is none of your business if it becomes more prevalent.

Re:TFA's technical facts are wrong

[BosstonesOwn]

Had you bothered to check facts , v-cast is not powered by media flow , and niether is "mobile tv".

There is actually a tv app that uses media flow , the 2 are just video on demand type services over ip to the handset.

Once again Americans take in the chin*

[countertrolling]

Heh, more like between the cheeks, when it comes to cell phone service.

*Who got hit in the chin by more balls? Yogi Berra? Or Rock Hudson?

Re:No thanks.

[gruntled]

Saying there's too much crap on TV to own a television set is like saying there are too many awful books to have a library card.

Why pay for a service that already exists?

[Pro923]

I've been watching TV on my WM phones for years now for free. Well - not for free - I mean I already pay for the internet connection... I was living out in Seattle for a short contract and needed to see the patriots games. Back home I have a XP box in the basement with an old ATI TV card in it. The flow goes like this: CATV from Boston ATI TV Wonder card Windows Media Encoder (free download from MS) Internet connection to phone Windows media player What's so complicated? I could even use Remote Desktop to log in and switch channels.

Mobile DTV and Flo TV DON'T USE the Cell Network!

[BBF_BBF]

Don't trust the article to provide correct information.

As others have posted, both the new US Mobile DTV standard and Qualcomm's Flo TV do not use the Cell network to broadcast its video/audio signals. Those are broadcast using a completely separate broadcast network similar to existing Terristrial Broadcast ATSC. No extra bandwidth is used on the cell network for audio/video data. Unlike the previous gen of Carrier provided video like Vcast and SprintTV that actually sent/still send data individually to each handset through the cellular data connection, requiring scads of bandwidth that could be used for browsing the interwebs/calls/pron.

Non-idiot here...

[evilviper]

I've heard enough from the peanut gallery now... The non-stop bickering about trivialities is getting pretty damn old, and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Here's a lolipop, go away little children, and let the adults talk.

Is Europe, DVB-H had been promoted for literally decades as the thing that was going to change the world... EVERYTHING was going to have a TV on it, cell phones most of all.

Fast forward to the modern day, with cell phone manufacturers having disputes with broadcasters over DVB-H fees, one just went ahead and built a full DVB-T receiver into their cell phones. It was a stunning development. Sure, it used a bit more power, but now you could watch REAL TV programs, not just the niche "mobile" broadcasts that you were supposed to want to watch on your cell phone. Of course broadcasters were put in their place by this move, and DVB-H fees have become more reasonable, and there's an effort to get real content out there. But either way, the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and people now want "real TV" on their cell phones, and a large number of them get just that these days, for a fairly small premium...

Of course ATSC in the US is much more complex than DVB-T in Europe, but never the less, you certainly can still find a handheld TV for under $100 http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/541548/Digital-Prism-ATSC-300-3-5/

So, it's only a question of time. Give it another year, and your smart phones will receive OTA broadcasts, for free. Sure, they might also support the premium in-network TV-like data system, but nobody will want it, and the niche audience won't be large enough to support the effort. And it'll go the way of the MPEG-1 D-Frames, and the "PDA Internet", as do all poorly thought-out kludges that are only stop-gaps for temporarily resource-starved platforms that can't yet play with the big boys.

That is all. You may now return to your endless and pointless bickering about whether or not it's worthwhile to buy a subsidized cell phone...