MTN teams up with Naspers for DVB-H mobile service

Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cellular operator, MTN recently announced that it had teamed up with media firm Naspers to offer Africa’s first mobile TV service.
Naspers subsidiary, Multichoice, has been trialing a DVB-H pilot service for some time and will now be able to go forward and launch a commercial service with MTN, but first they need a licence from the S A communication regulator.
MTN said that it would be selling Samsung P910 TV enabled cell phones and that customers buying the unit will be able to sign up for a free trial access to the 11 channel DVB-H service. The Naspers pay-TV service is called DStv.
Multichoice hope to get a licence for the service in the first quarter of 2007, however according to some   reports t he Independent Communications Authority of SA is going through applications from 18 companies bidding for licences, and the regulator’s acting broadcasting general manager, Sipho Tsotetsi, expects the processes to be finalised in June next year.
Source: Reuters and Business Report
Item added: 17th October 2006