Music TV in your pocket

When the first adverts of MTV Mobile were put up across Malta people started to ask whether a new mobile operator was going to launch in Malta. The brand MTV does not need any introduction, but a mobile service attached to it was unheard of locally.

That's until it was officially announced that the leader in music entertainment on TV intended to launch its own service powered by Go. It was not going to be another mobile virtual network operator, a smaller mobile operator that uses the infrastructure of a larger mobile network operator to provide its commercial services, like the two MVNOs that launched last year. It was a new brand of mobile service.

MTV Mobile targets an important segment of the local mobile user market, the youth market, born and raised with MTV channels on their home TV sets and which, according to statistics includes some of the keenest mobile users.

It is also the first time in Malta that mobile users are being specifically encouraged to take up a service because of the content offered rather than attractive calling or SMS rates, though Maltese MNOs have been offering information, education and entertainment content for mobile handsets for many years now.

"The MTV Mobile service clearly targets the youth segment and there is considerable interest in the service, especially because it provides free downloadable and streaming content, as well as TV on the move - as well as attractive calling and texting rates," said Norbert Prihoda, Go's chief operating officer. "In addition, MTV Mobile is providing its customers with the opportunity to get free tickets to local and international events."

One of the MVNOs that launched last year, Bay Mobile, tried to target the youth segment but the latest official statistics revealed the operator's struggling first months at this attempt. Mr Prihoda, on the contrary, is quite confident.

"We believe that we will make inroads in this market, as we have done with the Go Mobile brand. Clearly it's a different proposition and we are confident that the power of an international brand such as MTV and the support and service provided by Go are an excellent combination which gives the peace of mind to users of the MTV Mobile service."

When i-Tech asked Mr Prihoda whether we could see similar branding for other local market segments if the MTV Mobile brand is successful, he replied that "nothing is excluded".

i-Tech had the opportunity to test the MTV Mobile service for a couple of weeks on a Nokia 5800 Xpress Music handset.

The overall experience was quite positive. It is really "MTV in your pocket" but users have to keep in mind that this is a mobile experience which is considerably different from a TV experience in terms of quality.

MTV Mobile provides access to the same content that is available on TV but this is compressed and adapted to be delivered to a mobile phone. Although quality is good, it is the standard quality expected on a small screen of mobile handset delivered over the broadband capabilities of a mobile operator's network. When we tested the service in areas covered by Go's 3G or 3.5G, the content was delivered immediately and seamlessly. But in areas covered by EDGE or GPRS, therefore at lower access speeds, we could hardly use the service or we had to wait a long time to download something.

MTV Mobile's content consists of ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers, and streaming of video content. Snippets from popular TV episodes from MTV's huge library and MTV music videos are available as video on demand. These cover the most popular singers and groups out there. MTV shorts are also made available as video streaming. Our Nokia Xpress Music handset was configured to get the MTV Mobile experience immediately, so that no big effort was required to locate the content which is also hosted on Go, and there is no need to connect to an international MTV website.

At the moment this branded content is made available free of charge, not just for viewing but also no data access costs are incurred. However, a fair usage policy is applied.

This is over and above all the regular service expected from a mobile company such as voice calls, video calls, SMS, MMS, internet access to non-MTV Mobile content and international roaming.

"The usage of value-added services is on the increase as more and more 3G handsets are being purchased," revealed Go's chief operations officer. "On an overall note the use of wireless data in general has increased considerably, mainly as a result of the wider use of internet keys on laptops and notebooks, and the proliferation of smartphones such as BlackBerry."

Go has opened a dedicated MTV Mobile store at the Embassy outlet in Valletta and MTV Mobile services are also available from all Go outlets.

www.mtvmobile.com.mt