Swisscom has launched its DVB-H based mobile TV service, Bluewin TV making them one of the first European providers of high quality mobile TV to its users. Bluewin TV offers a full 20 TV channels, including SF1, TSR1 and Eurosport to its subscribers who are willing to hand over 16 Swiss francs, that’s approximately $15.40, per month.

Apparently Bluewin TV coverage reaches 44 percent of the Swiss populate, but mostly in the area of Basel, Berne, Geneva, Zurich and Lausanne; although anyone venturing outside Bluewin airwaves can continue to receive service from Vodafone’s Live! Portal via UMTS and also EDGE networks.

Swisscom worked in conjunction with Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks to bring Bluewin TV service to the Swiss, though unfortunately it appears the only mobile phone supporting Bluewin TV at present is the Nokia N77 though given time it wouldn’t be surprising if eventually they took in the Nokia N96.

Head of Strategic Projects at Swisscom Broadcast, Olivier Anthamatten had this to say: “With the time constraints of the project, it was essential for Swisscom Broadcast to rely on one partner offering a solution based on open standards which can guarantee the end-to-end interoperability of the whole solution, from the DVB-H back-end system to the mobile devices”

Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks work with more than 30 operators worldwide on DVB-H implementations.

Source — mobiletechnews