Mobile operators slug it out as TV on phones hits Europe

Mobile operators across Europe are falling over themselves to get involved with mobile TV.

Handset giant Nokia has teamed up with MTV and other broadcasters for a trial of TV over mobile. Five hundred people from in and around Helsinki will be able to trial the technology and gain access to channels including BBC World, Eurosport and Fashion TV, as well as programs from MTV and other stations.

The 500, who will be chosen from the subscribers of operators Elisa and Sonera, will be able to watch the TV on Nokia 7710s which will come with an accessory designed to allow the smart phones to pick up the shows.

The technology behind the trial is IP datacasting, which will work with the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handhelds) mobile standard.

The trial will last until 20 June.

Several of the main French operators are also champing at the bit to get experiments with TV over mobile.

On 7 March a consortium of France Télécom, Orange and Bouygues Télécom, as well as broadcaster TPS and media company Bouygues, have asked the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) - the governing body for French broadcasting - to allocate the frequency resources necessary to start trials.

On the same day, broadcaster Canal+, mobile operator SFR and radio company Towercast confirmed they had made the same request to the CSA with a view to kicking off the first phase of their own tests. Scheduled for the second quarter of this year, these trials will last around nine months and take in around 500 users.

ZDNet France's Christophe Guillemin contributed to this report