Orange and T-Mobile team up for telly pilot

Orange and T-Mobile have announced it’s time for another mobile pilot. The two operators will use NextWave Wireless’ UMTS MBMS based TDtv product for a six month trial, which will reuse some spare spectrum that all operators bar Vodafone were awarded when they bought their 3G licences.

The pilot will see West Londoners getting square-eyed with up to 24 TV channels and 10 digital radio stations. No word on what will be available to watch, except that there will some of the “most popular broadcast and premium television channels”.

Orange and T-Mobile will be asking other European operators and handset makers to join in with the experiment as observers.

Things are certainly looking promising for TDtv – this is the second trial both operators have conducted incorporating the company’s technology. The results from last one, which took place in Bristol, were “extremely encouraging” to boot – hopefully we’ll be hearing more about how competing standards are faring as MWC goes along.