AT&T to launch mobile TV service

(newsadvance) -- AT&T Inc. will launch a mobile television service Sunday in 58 other U.S. metropolitan markets.

Subscribers to AT&T’s wireless broadband service can pay as little as $15 extra a month and watch all the “SpongeBob SquarePants” and CNN election coverage they can handle right on their cell phones.

AT&T is offering mobile television by partnering with MediaFLO USA Inc., a Qualcomm Inc. subsidiary. The only other wireless company offering the company’s service, according to MediaFLO’s Web site, is Verizon Wireless, which offers mobile television to its V Cast customers.

The technology does not use a wireless company’s broadband network nor a subscriber’s broadband air minutes. That’s because the programming is carried over a separate one-way ultra-high frequency signal to what is essentially a tiny TV receiver built into wireless phones designed to receive the service. full story