Link: Mobile Marketing Magazine: Is this the Ultimate Mobile TV Service?.
Mobile technology company ROK Entertainment has revealed plans to launch a set-top box that will relay TV programmes from a consumer’s living room to their mobile phone, with no additional subscription cost involved.
David at Mobile Marketing Magazine isn’t wrong. If ROK can deliver what they’re apparently promising, it could well be the ultimate mobile TV service. I would definitely sign up. Sat on the train this evening I’d have been delighted to catch up on the Daily Show episodes sat on my Sky+ box.
However, i can’t find an answer to this issue: DATA CHARGES.
The ROK site advises that on the 2.5g demo, 1 meg of data usage will deliver roughly 4 minutes of TV. (I think I’ve got that accurate).
Now, I looked into the FAQ and found that for the main service you are also responsible for your data charges.
There is absolutely no way I will pay £2.35 to watch four minutes of mobile TV on top of the ROK monthly subscription.
What am I missing?
Is the only solution to become a Vodafone 3g card owner (as I am) with an ‘unlimited’ (read: 1-2 gig a month before they get shirty) allowance and then use the sim card in your mobile to watch TV?
I remember three years ago being astounded that I could get Radio through my o2 XDA via GPRS. Then I found out I’d used my entire monthly data allowance on 10 minutes of listening.
I was hoping to read that ROK had done some super dooper deal with the four main operators to wave data charges for any ROK users… or something like this.
So if I’m a Lost fan and I want to watch one 45 minute episode a week at an industry standard(ish) data cost of £2.35 per 4 minutes, that’s going to cost me £26 a week or £105 for the month. Plus the ROK subscription. No deal….!
I hope I really am missing something, I really would like to try it out.
I used Rok only last week, really just testing it’s quality out. The thing is, on 2.5g/GPRS, the video is delivered at around 6.5 fps, and is appalling qaulity. Yes, this is a Cool thing to have, but ultimately, when the quality is this poor, it will never develop past novelty value. Which is where your 3G services come in. That said, if Rok are saying they will deliver 4 minutes at 1MB, does that apply to 3G devices too? Does the service look at your connectivity and deliver say 15fps if you are on 3G?
In answer to your question on data charges, again, I have to point you at Oranges pay as you go 1£ per day unlimited data feature 😀
Over the last two days I have used 50MB of dat down and 20MB up. Truly unlimited, and I’m so used to it now, if they ever stopped the service I dont know what I’d do!
Hello – this is Bruce at ROK.
Great to see discussion on some of our new content-for-mobile technologies!
Firstly – though – the space-shifting Black Box does not require GPRS bandwidth as long as you’re in a Wi-Fi zone. And Wi-Fi zones/Hot-Spots are all around us in ever increasing numbers.
It’s only when you’re outside a Hot-Spot that the ROK Black Box finds your handset via GPRS.
On the subject of ROK TV – our 2.5G mobile TV service via GPRS, I must say that the prices some networks charge for GPRS in the UK on certain tariffs is outrageous. And very short-sighted. So we can only accept subscriptions from people who either have a GPRS data package in their tariff or who don’t mind paying their network hand-over-fist for it.
That said, we launched ROK TV in the UK mainly to prove the technology works.
Our plan is to launch ROK TV service in countries where GPRS is sold on an ‘all-you-can-eat’ basis for a very modest fee.
And – just to clarify – ROK TV plays at 14fps on 2.5G GPRS and will, when we launch our 3G version, play at 24fps.
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