14 DAY TRIAL // Last year, Virgin Mobile proudly announced the launch of its mobile TV service in UK, which was to start in October 2006. It did start, of course, provided by BT Movio and supported by an advertising campaign featuring no other than Pamela Andreson.
Currently, the service only works on one device, the Lobster 700 smartphone from HTC, which was not really seen as the prettiest phone out there, if you know what I mean. Launched at the same time with the Mobile TV service, Lobster 700's sales were far from what Virgin and BT expected. Furthermore, the service relies on the DAP (Digital Audio Broadcasting) standard and, recently, the European Commission decided to authorize the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) standard, a DAP rival that can provide a larger number of TV channels.
All this has made BT and Virgin Mobile abandon their Mobile TV service. The service will still run though until January 2008, according to Virgin Mobile.
An official statement from BT says: "BT can confirm that following a review of its wholesale solutions, the decision has been made not to continue with the Movio service. BT is discussing the timescale for the closure of the service with Virgin Mobile. While the feedback from users on the service has been complimentary, Movio sales have been slower than originally expected mainly due to a lack of compatible devices from the big brands. This in turn has been caused by the fragmented nature of the mobile TV market and hesitancy on the part of the main network operators as they seek to fill their own largely under-utilised 3G networks."
If you are among the customers that love the Lobster 700 phone and the Vrigin Mobile TV service, you'll pretty soon have to find something else instead. You know what they say: lovers come and lovers go.