Advanced Television

Sky on 3

November 19, 2008

BSkyB is adding its channel lineup to 3's mobile TV offering in the UK. The satcaster's channels are already available through services offered by Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and in O2's now-finished mobile TV trial since 2005.

Sky will be charged at £5 (E6.3) a month. It says its 30 live linear channels have over 200,000 subscribers; with the news and sports channels most popular on mobile. Sky is routing the channels "off-portal", meaning the stream will not come via the operator's network but over Sky's own infrastructure, managed by video delivery network Vidiator. This will mean that data will not be zero rated; the service will prompt customers to consider taking an internet add-on in advance of streaming videos – internet add-ons are available from £2.50 a month for 10Mb of data. This isn't likely to boost take up, but it's in keeping with Sky's strategy to take control of its mobile assets – it recently won control of its mobile ads back from T-Mobile and Vodafone.

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