Swisscom has launched its mobile television service, Bluewin TV mobile, in Switzerland to become one of the first European providers to offer high-quality television experience to its mobile customers. Working together, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks enabled this service with their leading-edge mobile TV technology, services and expertise.

Bluewin TV mobile was launched on May 13 with quality comparable to that of the customers — home TV. The service is made available through a network based on the Digital Video Broadcast for Handheld (DVB-H) standard and can be watched on DVB-H-enabled mobile devices. Swisscom provides its customers with a range of subscription plans and Nokia N77 devices.

For this project, Swisscom’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Swisscom Broadcast chose Nokia’s Mobile Broadcast Solution, while Nokia Siemens Networks integrated the mobile television platform with Swisscom’s systems and provided a broad range of services, including project management, network and architecture planning, security and implementation.

“With the time constraints of the project, it was essential for Swisscom Broadcast to rely on one partner offering a solution based on open standards which can guarantee the end-to-end interoperability of the whole solution, from the DVB-H back-end system to the mobile devices” says Olivier Anthamatten, Head of Strategic Projects at Swisscom Broadcast.

With Bluewin TV mobile, featuring high-definition picture quality and excellent sound, the viewers have a choice of 20 channels, including SF1, TSR1 and Eurosport. An electronic program guide and an easy navigation key allow people on the move to always stay on top of the news.

Swisscom is one of the first DVB-H service providers in Europe and worldwide. Bluewin TV mobile marks a further step in the Group’s multimedia strategy and offers customers on the move the same viewing experience as with their TV at home.

Swisscom’s DVB-H broadcasts reach some 44 percent of the Swiss population, mostly in the area of Basel, Berne, Geneva, Zurich and Lausanne. Customers outside the DVB-H coverage area or without DVB-H handsets can receive Bluewin TV mobile on the Vodafone live! portal using UMTS/EDGE, which covers 99.8 percent of the population.

After Dish Network paid $712 million for airwaves in the last spectrum auction, there was a ton of speculation as to what the satellite TV company was going to do with it. Now, the company says it is thinking of using the licenses to build a mobile TV service with the help of a yet-to-be-determined partner, Multichannel News reports. The company purchased the airwaves in the big March auction, winning enough licenses to cover the entire country, except for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston. Because the cost of building a network would be high—between $500 million to $2 billion, some analysts estimate—it’s likely the company will take time to make any decision.

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen and vice chairman Carl Vogel said during its Q1 conference call that they still have to pick the right technology, the right business model, and the right partner, before it rolls out mobile TV. “Overall, our intent is to certainly bring in partners,” Vogel said. “We’re a long, long, long way from building anything out. We’re a long, long, long way from deciding who our partners will be and when, but we do think it is a valuable piece of spectrum that gives us an opportunity to have numerous strategic discussions that will provide an asset that’s additive to the business we already have.”

Abertis Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that they have set up a joint workgroup to evaluate the potential of Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution for Abertis Telecom’s broadcast TV business. The joint workgroup has started a technical evaluation of Alcatel-Lucent’s proposed system. These analyses will validate certain technical and cost hypotheses associated with the deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s solution in relation with new business opportunities for Abertis Telecom.

This cooperation follows a straightforward rationale after the acquisition by Abertis of a significant stake in Eutelsat Communications, which invested jointly with SES ASTRA into an S-Band (2.2 GHz) payload onboard Eutelsat’s W2A satellite provided by Alcatel Alenia Space, allowing the delivery of mobile broadcast services over Europe. In this context, Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution, using a high-power satellite complemented by terrestrial repeaters in the S-Band, could represent one of the first examples of synergies for hybrid terrestrial/satellite telecommunication networks and applications, further projecting Abertis’ telecommunications business internationally.

Both companieswill perform together live mobile TV demonstrations during the 3GSM World Congress 2007 in Barcelona from February 12 to 15, 2007. These demonstrations are based on the forthcoming DVB-SH broadcast mobile TV standard. Abertis Telecom, as “The official 3GSM Mobile TV Network Partner”, will provide their support to showcase the forthcoming DVB-SH technology on the Alcatel-Lucent’s booth (Hall 8, Booth# A8 139 & A8 147).

Abertis Telecom stands as the reference TV broadcast network operator in Spain. Its cooperation with Alcatel-Lucent places Abertis Telecom in the best position to assess the potential of the S-band, which is widely available across the continent, for the cost-efficient delivery of broadcast mobile TV in Europe. In Spain, results from several DVB-H trials lead by Abertis Telecom confirmed the users’ acceptance of a high-quality mobile TV service proposition.

The commitment of Alcatel-Lucent’s “Unlimited Mobile TV” solution is to make television available on mobile phones and other devices throughout rural and urban areas, including indoors, with a wide range of programming options and excellent image quality, regardless of the number of viewers simultaneously watching the same program.

Alcatel-Lucent is committed to support service providers in delivering a truly converged TV experience. Alcatel-Lucent has already established a leading position in interactive TV services, and already enables TV, video and music services for more than 110 fixed and mobile service providers around the world.