MobiTV tops 3M subscribers, extends with Sprint Nextel

MobiTV Inc. hit the three-million-subscriber mark and is experiencing even greater video usage among each of those subscribers, the company announced yesterday.
“We really feel like we’re set up now for ’08 to be a huge year for TV,” President and Co-founder Paul Scanlan said.
“Viewing time per subscriber has gone up probably 15% to 20% in the past six months,” he said. During that period, the company also climbed from 2 million subscribers to 3 million.
“Not only are we experiencing phenomenal growth in new subscriptions, we’ve also seen growth in viewing time for new and existing users, which is a huge indicator of what’s to come,” Scanlan added. “We’re at the beginning of an incredible shift in how, where and when people consume media, and MobiTV is the best delivery platform for our carrier and content partners as they work to create new experiences and fully monetize this incredible growth.”
Scanlan said the company is adding new technology to the service, including an improved user interface to match the rising capabilities of carrier networks and the users who rely on them. The company’s footprint has grown steadily as more and more users adopt data bundles along with 3G-capable devices and services. According to MobiTV, users with 3G phones use the service about 33% more than subscribers with 2.5G phones.
While new video encoders and software are improving the service’s performance and quality, the company is also working to significantly decrease channel-changing times.
“On the unicast networks the channel-changing time is just too long, frankly,” Scanlan said. “There’s nothing fundamental about broadcast that makes channel changing faster than on unicast.”
MobiTV’s long-term target is to hit two-second channel changes, which would match the channel-changing speeds offered by MediaFLO USA Inc.
New technology that MobiTV is implementing in two phases is expected to eventually speed up its channel-changing time from its current five to eight seconds. The first phase will reduce the duration between channels by at least 50%, while the second phase should bring it down to two seconds, Scanlan said.
“What we’re seeing is just dramatic changes in how you change channels,” Scanlan added.
MobiTV also announced that it has entered into a new, three-year deal with Sprint Nextel Corp. to extend its four-year running arrangement while adding new services to users on the No. 3 carrier.
The Sprint TV service will soon include a new interface that will include Sprint TV, Sprint TV Xtra, Sprint TV en Vivo and Pivot. The companies will also work to bring Sprint Nextel subscribers the most extensive content offering in the United States, MobiTV said.
“With more than four years of experience operating a mobile television network together with Sprint, we look at this long-term commitment as a strong indicator that mobile television is a must-have application for a mobile user. We are laser focused on providing Sprint customers with the best possible mobile television experience,” Scanlan said.