From David del Valle in Madrid

Orange Spain, controlled by France Telecom, is launching the first HDTV broadcasts via mobile in Spain. The trial will last three months and will include three TV channels – MTV, National Geographic Channel and Sci Fi and some other sports content (football, tennis and basketball) – to be received free of charge by consumers equipped with a 3G or HSDPA mobile terminals. The operator currently has nearly 11 million clients, of which 1.2 million are 3G customers.

The company plans to roll out commercial mobile HDTV services from 2008. In France, Orange already offers 60 HDTV channels in its Premium package. The announcement comes at a time when the operator has strengthened its mobile TV offer by adding 16 new TV channels up to more than 30 TV channels at a price of E6 a month. All of them can also be watched on a pay-per-view basis at a price of E1 per 20 minutes.

Currently, the Orange’s mobile TV package is composed of the following channels: Bloomberg TV, Euronews, MTV Music, Paramount Comedy, Cartoon Network, National Geographic Channel, Calle 13, Scifi, Nick, Fox TV, La Sexta Movil, TVC i, Tele5, Trace TV, GONG, Oh! Music, Xtreme Sports, A3 Lo Mejor, A3 Series, CNNi, Boomerang, Adult Swing, LiveStyle Playboy, MTV Mix, Animax, Pocoyo TV, BBCi, PlayBoy, Blue and Sexy Dreams.

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Categories: Articles, Mobile, Mobile TV, UHD