"You have to create content for this device, and you have to be realistic about what you can do," said Kevin Tsujihara, executive vice president of corporate business development and strategy for Warner Bros., which is experimenting with made-for-cell-phone programming. He said mobile video cannot include fancy special effects or a lot of movement. For now, Tsujihara said, it is mostly a marketing device, and not one that has a mass audience.
Mobile television is more advanced in Japan and South Korea, where high-speed cellular networks were built earlier, and where consumers adapted quickly to such services. In Japan, leading cellular provider NTT DoCoMo Inc. launched video service in 2001. It is now available to about a fifth of DoCoMo's 47 million customers who own cellular phones that work on its highest speed network, a spokesman for DoCoMo said.
In the United States, Sprint introduced the first cell-TV service in November 2003. It was followed by AT&T Wireless Services Inc., which launched its service in October, before it was acquired by Cingular.
Market researcher Yankee Group estimates there are 280,000 subscribers to mobile TV in the United States, mostly through Sprint's service. The number could reach 1.3 million by year-end and 10.8 million by 2008, Yankee Group said.
"We're still at a very early stage with these kinds of services worldwide," said Linda Barrabee, an analyst with the Yankee Group. "I personally think there's a lot of hurdles. It's a question of what's the quality. When it comes down to forking out an extra $10 to $15 a month, if it's a slide show, that's not gonna cut it."
Since the introduction of cell TV, mobile-phone networks have improved, making them faster to download bulky files like video. Still, it takes more than 10 seconds to download a two-minute clip on Verizon Wireless's fastest network, available so far in the Washington area and 31 other markets. The company said it is looking for speedier download technologies. Cingular and Sprint are in the process of upgrading their networks this year to match Verizon Wireless's speeds.
The phones also have improved, with higher-resolution screens, faster processors, more battery power and software that delivers up to 15 frames per second, compared with the 25 to 30 frames per second of conventional television.
Bob Egan, president of Mobile Competency Inc., a telecommunications consultancy, said he has sampled cell TV and enjoys it for watching news from the road.
"I found myself in airports, catching CNN and sports updates, and it was a heck of a lot easier getting info using that than getting it in textual updates" which are hard to read on the phone, he said.
But Egan does not buy the idea that the cell phone will become the next venue for video entertainment. "I think it's still a technology in search of a market. The mainstream person carrying a cell phone won't make a tradeoff of battery life to watch videos," he said.
