Reliance To Launch Video Streaming On Mobiles

[Arun 795]

Mumbai - November 08, 2006

Business Standard

Reliance Communications (RCL) will be launching mobile video streaming for the first time in India on Thursday. It has made strategic alliance with UTStarcom for this purpose.

The official announcement will be held on Thursday, during Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote address, which will be hosted on a mobile phone in India.

Mobile video streaming is similar to a web cast and has potential to provide online video of events to millions of viewers on a mobile phone. Reliance, it is claimed, is the first CDMA mobile operator in India, which has the capacity to do a live relay of an event through video.

Reliance Communications has tied up with Nokia and LG for handsets, which would cost around $100 (Rs. 4,475) per piece. The phones would be available at Reliance, Nokia and LG outlets.

The service can be used to transmit the video on to a large screen through the mobile device at a remote location at a much lower capex and cost.

Mobile video streaming is similar to a webcast and has a great potential for providing online video of popular event footage to millions of viewers on a mobile phone.

There are no independent estimates of the video streaming market in India but industry pegs its potential to be around Rs 300 crore per annum. The popular events and specific-interest events industry size in India is around Rs 10,000 crore per annum and money can be made through location sponsorships and advertising during mass media telecasts.

Reliance Communications has been working on a couple of revenue models. The first one is where the event organiser pays a lump sum fee to set up a zone and provide access to a set of visitors. There could also be a reverse model, which charges an access fee. There could be some hybrid models where the organiser pays a flat fee and charges an access fee. There are possibilities of the subscribers paying an access charge, the revenue of which could be shared between the operator and the event organiser, according to Reliance sources.

Even telecast of specific interest events have significant potential for mobile casting and the company is looking at targeting the same in a major way.

At present, around 50% of Reliance Communications subscriber base of 27 million has devices supporting video and audio streaming functionality. However, most handset models launched in India are likely to have video and audio streaming facility.

Experts said revenue stream in such cases can work on two models. The first one, where the event organizer pays a lump sum fee to set up a zone and providing access to a particular volume of visitors. A reverse model could be to charge access fee per subscriber.

[Arun 795]

UTStarcom PPC 6700 was released today in conjuction with the above announcement.

[Honest 836]

Great News !

Cheers.