Both manufacturers and networks consider watching video on a mobile phone to be one of the killer applications of the third generation (3G) handsets.
Nokia has already screened TV ads showing a person watching their favourite soap on the bus. Meanwhile, courtesy of a deal with the FA Premiership, Hutchison's 3G network 3 is to offer streamed football clips when it is launched in spring next year.
Yet, with other networks now expected not to launch their 3G services until at least the end of 2003, several companies have been working on offering streamed video on a mobile over current GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) handsets.
First to launch is Oplayo, a Finland-based company, which intends to deliver streamed video to GPRS phones starting next week.
It has teamed up with a series of content providers, including Reuters, BMG and Sony to offer mainly news and music-based clips in a service called Mobile Media Club.
Not all networks, and indeed not all GPRS phones, can access the service. T-Mobile and Virgin subscribers will have to wait until their networks offer GPRS. The phone uses the Symbian operating system, which at the present time pretty much limits its reach to Nokia's 7650 handset. Other Symbian-based, colour-screen models, like Sony Ericsson's much delayed P800, will go on sale early next year.
To view the clips, users first have to download an Oplayer player. They send an SMS to Oplayo, then after receiving a message, download the player via GPRS. It is about 45K so takes a couple of minutes to transfer.
Phone owners can then either choose clips via the handset, or browse through them and make their choice using the www.mobilemediaclub.com website. For £1 they can stream a series of images over a six-hour period.
Setting up an Oplayer on our Nokia 7650 using 02's GPRS service proved to be something of a trial. Oplayo, however, insists it is ironing out the glitches and the installation will be straightforward from launch. From next year, terminals in stores like Carphone Warehouse will be able to send the player to the phone via infrared.
The quality of the videos the 7650 delivers - either Reuters news clips or snippets of BMG music videos - was pretty much what I had expected from a system that uses data speeds of just 26k. Images were certainly viewable, although there was some blocking, and the clips paused to buffer a couple of times. They took me back to the days of video streaming via a PC with a 56k connection. While the Oplayer works well enough for music and video, the big challenge will be to ensure it can handle faster-moving video such as football and horse racing. There clearly is a huge potential market for both.
Also likely to prove successful is adult content. Although this is not available via the Mobile Media Club, there are several content providers working on videos that are viewed via the player.
"How video content over GPRS develops largely depends on the networks," explains UK managing director Philip Bourchier O'Ferrall. "We are showing them that video can be streamed over GPRS and that there are people who will pay to view it. We think there is a real opportunity for them to make money from their own content."
In addition to sports clips, Philip Bourchier O'Ferrall believes movie previews and video ringtones could prove lucrative for the networks.
Oplayo is also hoping owners of Java-based phones - a large percentage of current handsets - will also want to try mobile video. It will launch a version of its player with a more limited video capability for those mobiles early next year.
Come the arrival of 3G networks, Oplayo will face some serious opposition from established streamers such as Real and Microsoft. If Oplayo can sell the benefits of video streaming over GPRS to both networks and customers, it could then be ready to face that challenge.
