ROK has launched a free mainstream mobile TV service, FreeBe TV.Currently it has ten channels of content including extreme sports, vintage comedy, classic cartoons,...
classic movies, Monkey News (real live Reuters news read by computer-animated monkeys – what you’ve always wanted, right?) plus one for user-generated content (You-Made-It, described as “a mobile version of YouTube”).
FreeBe TV is streamed over GPRS to WAP-enabled phones – ROK says it is compatible with 14 handsets now, 100 by the end of the year – and there are no subscription charges. Of course, the GPRS data charges could be hefty: FreeBe TV is aimed primarily at people with GPRS data packages in their mobile tariff.
“This is mass-market 2.5G rather than niche 3G and it’s free, which dramatically increases access to mobile TV and massively reduces barriers to adoption,” comments ROK’s Bruce Renny. “Taking a mass market product to a mass market audience via a mass market mobile technology (2.5G) is the only way for the industry to grow.”
FreeBe TV launched earlier this month and has already received more than 100,000 hits on it’s website www.freebe.tv and more than 2,500 people are now enjoying free mobile TV worldwide.
“We’ll be compatible with 100 major handsets by the end of the year” said Bruce Renny of FreeBe TV “but what’s really exciting is that people are already viralling the news that free mobile TV exists to their friends, so uptake is growing exponentially day by day.”
FreeBe TV is streamed over GPRS to WAP-enabled phones – ROK says it is compatible with 14 handsets now, 100 by the end of the year – and there are no subscription charges. Of course, the GPRS data charges could be hefty: FreeBe TV is aimed primarily at people with GPRS data packages in their mobile tariff.
“This is mass-market 2.5G rather than niche 3G and it’s free, which dramatically increases access to mobile TV and massively reduces barriers to adoption,” comments ROK’s Bruce Renny. “Taking a mass market product to a mass market audience via a mass market mobile technology (2.5G) is the only way for the industry to grow.”
FreeBe TV launched earlier this month and has already received more than 100,000 hits on it’s website www.freebe.tv and more than 2,500 people are now enjoying free mobile TV worldwide.
“We’ll be compatible with 100 major handsets by the end of the year” said Bruce Renny of FreeBe TV “but what’s really exciting is that people are already viralling the news that free mobile TV exists to their friends, so uptake is growing exponentially day by day.”