Live TV coming to Metro PCS smartphones later in 2012

Computerworld - MetroPCS Communications customers in 14 cities will be able to watch live, local broadcast TV on their mobile phones later in 2012, the company said Wednesday.

MetroPCS partnered with Mobile Content Venture (MCV) to provide Dyle Mobile TV. The service initially will be pre-loaded on a Samsung smartphone that will be available later in 2012, the companies said in a statement. Dyle is the consumer brand created by MCV to deliver live mobile TV content from 15 major broadcast groups such as Cox, Gannett, Fox, NBC and others.

MetroPCS, MCV and Samsung will demonstrate the Dyle live mobile TV service next week at the International CES trade show in Las Vegas.

The carrier listed the following 14 cities as where the Samsung smartphones with Dyle will be available later this year: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Jacksonville, Fla.; Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Tampa, Fla.

MCV eventually plans to offer mobile video services over 72 TV stations in 32 cities. The Dyle Mobile TV service relies on the Mobile DTV standard approved by the Advanced Television Systems Committee in 2009.

Metro PCS, with about 9 million subscribers, is the nation's fifth-largest wireless carrier.

Read more about Mobile/Wireless in Computerworld's Mobile/Wireless Topic Center.