ROK aims for mass market mobile TV

UK mobile content and entertainment firm ROK, which launched a paid for streaming TV service earlier this year, has introduced a free version of the service for consumers still dubious about paying for mobile TV.

The FreeBe TV service, available via ROK TV, offers for channels of content: an extreme sports channel, a vintage comedy channel, and a classic cartoons and movies channel, as well as a user-generated channel, which aims to tap into the increasing demand for user generated content.

ROK TV channels are streamed over GPRS to WAP-enabled enabled handsets. The FreeBe TV content is free from subscription charges but consumers will end up paying their operator for the GPRS data transfer, so the service is better suited to people with GPRS data packages in their mobile tariff.

In the future, ROK hinted that the free service is likely to be supported by advertising.

“This is mass-market 2.5G rather than niche 3G and it’s free, which dramatically increases access to mobile TV and massively reduces barriers to adoption. Only through.services such as FreeBe TV can we ensure mobile TV achieves the critical mass required for mass adoption and long-term durability,” said ROK spokesman Bruce Renny.