U Mobile’s Mobile LiveTV is No More

U Mobile’s claim to fame product has apparently been scrapped.

Reports from sources close to us have revealed that the 3G operator’s Mobile LiveTV is no longer available.

Mobile LiveTV is U Mobile’s brand of live TV content distributed via DVB-H technology. What is DVB-H? Simply put, it’s like Astro (which uses DVB broadcast standard) but is developed for applications in mobile devices.

Unlike streaming TV where the TV content is downloaded and is not broadcast live. DVB-H delivers TV content to your phone live in real time. Of course, you’ll need a DVB-H device (like the crappy Nokia N77 or the awesomely overpriced Nokia N96).

U Mobile was and still is the only ISP that provided DVB-H based content to the public. In 2005, Maxis was first to put the word out that they have deployed DVB-H for testing purposes but U Mobile was the first to market in 2007 albeit on a small scale.

Speculation is rife that the cause of the scrapping of the Mobile LiveTV service is due to it’s DVB-H licence being revoked by MCMC. We stress that this is unconfirmed.

The DVB-H service was offered via a packaged dubbed the “Friendly User Program”, that bundled unlimited DVB-H access across 7 channels (RTM1, RTM2, TV3, NTV7, Bloomberg, ChannelNews Asia and Trace TV).

Unfortunate to see the service being scrapped. We’ve been using the Mobile LiveTV since launch and actually find it tremendously useful. Picture quality was beyond what the competition could over with streaming TV technology and being able to catch the 8 o’clock news at 8 o’clock right from your phone was a huge appeal to us. We saw a huge potential with this service.

Content was a major issue but we were assured that this list will grow as the service takes of and garnered a bigger subscribers base. This didn’t happen.

Check out U Mobile’s previous news releases on Mobile LiveTV

• MiTV and Nokia Announce Live DVB-H Mobile TV Service Launch for Malaysia in 2H2007 – Released 18 June 2007
• U Mobile Introduces Mobile LiveTVTM Early via Friendly User Program – Released 12 November 2007