Do You Watch TV on Your Cell Phone?
Wireless carriers are delivering snippets of your favorite television shows, movie previews, news, sports, and more straight to your phone screen.
Sunday nights,
Watching TV on a cell phone is not like turning on your TV and catching whatever's on. Many of the video clips from Cingular Video (and competing services such as Sprint Power Vision and Verizon Wireless V Cast) are repackaged material from television and cable networks that are presented on a mobile platform. You download short clips, not entire episodes. I imagine that letting subscribers watch shows of 30 minutes or longer would clog the carrier's broadband network, plus quickly deplete phone batteries.
To use Cingular Video, you need a handset that supports the carrier's broadband-level 3G network, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System). The current choices are LG Electronics' CU320 and Samsung's ZX10. You also have to be in an area with Cingular's 3G service. Currently it's available in the following U.S. cities: Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tacoma, and Washington, D.C.
I tested Cingular Video on both the LG and the Samsung handsets and got similar performance around my house in San Francisco. Depending on the signal strength, a video clip took 45 seconds to a few minutes to transfer. The process involved downloading the information, buffering the data, and streaming the video to the phone. And like any kind of data transfer on cell phones, I occasionally ran into download glitches where the transmission didn't go through and I'd have to start over.
Once the file transfer is complete, the video begins playing. The clips range in length from less then 2 minutes long to almost 4 minutes. The video quality ranged from choppy to reasonably smooth. Although it wasn't perfect, it was good enough overall. Audio quality is another story: The phones delivered enough volume, but both sounded awful when I turned it up to the maximum level. The sound was muffled and distorted. Another drawback: If you receive an incoming call during video playback, it's routed straight to voice mail.
Launching the video service was a snap, thanks to a dedicated key on each phone. The CV home page displays featured shows; for example, my test phones had CNN, HBO Mobile Preview, and Access Hollywood on the initial page. To find other shows and channels, I had to click through layers of options. For example, to view a clip from
If primetime isn't your thing, you can choose shows in other CV categories, including late-night talk shows (such as
Cingular Video's pricing structure (and those of competing entertainment services) is very similar to a cable TV subscription. To get the video service, you pay $20 per month in addition to any other Cingular calling plan. This fee gives you access to a limited number of shows from Cartoon Network, CNN, Disney, ESPN, Fox, iFilm, NBC, and The Weather Channel. Watching clips of HBO shows--including
Along with the service, you also need special equipment. The LG CU320 and the Samsung ZX10 each cost $150 with a two-year Cingular service agreement. The handsets both have a 1.3-megapixel camera, a MicroSD card slot, and a speaker phone. They differ in style, though: The CU320 sports a slider design and the ZX10 is a clam-shell phone. The LG phone is bigger and has a larger screen than the Samsung, which made watching videos on the LG more enjoyable. I like the ZX10's compact size and tactile numeric keypad, however. The CU320's dial pad feels flat and slippery.
Cingular plans to add two more handsets, the Nokia 6282 and the LG CU500, to its lineup of UMTS-capable phones later this spring. The company also says it will expand its 3G service to other U.S. cities this year. Cingular is the third nationwide carrier to use its broadband-level 3G network for entertainment services. Verizon was the first out the door with its 3G EvDO (Evolution Data Optimized) network, plus the V Cast service. Sprint followed with its own EvDO network and the Power Vision data plan.
So, is Cingular Video worth the cost? Personally, I'm not enough of a television fanatic to view snippets of my favorite shows while I'm on a commuter train or just passing time. Cingular Video's HBO extras are nice to have, but they won't turn me into a TV-on-my-cell-phone junkie. And for the price I'd pay for TV on my phone, I'd rather put the money toward an HBO subscription with my cable TV provider.
Grace Aquino
