Rubberduck Media Lab has confimed that it had been engaged in trials with Entel PCS in Chile for high speed mobile TV over LTE tests. 

“We strongly believe that for mobile TV services to be successful, there are a number of elements in the eco-system that need to be in place – compelling affordable content, better handsets, and an easy to use application.” said Gunnar Sælleg, CEO of Aspiro. Rubberduck Media Lab is a subsidiary of Aspiro AB and provider of streaming mobile TV services. 

As those elements are increasingly aligned, a more robust service infrastructure will be needed to maintain a quality viewing experience, further boost subscriptions and retain mobile viewers.  â€œUltimately, LTE networks will provide the pathway for truly mass market adoption of mobile TV,” Sellæg added.

Rubberduck’s view is that high capacity, high speed LTE networks able to command considerable bitrate enhancements to current mobile standards will boost the adoption of mobile TV.

The company pledged to co-operate with its customers to test high premium quality TV signals streamed over LTE testbeds in select markets. The tests with Entel PCS, which already runs a successful mobile TV service powered by Rubberduck over its 3G network, began in December last year and were the first of their kind in Latin America.

Rubberduck CEO Erling Paulsen, explained: “To us it is clear that the future of mobile TV is linked with the future of mobile networks, not of broadcast networks.”

“TV technologies have been unable to show the way for this industry, mainly because the technical propositions have hidden costs and other barriers to entry that are prohibitive for the business case.  We therefore believe mobile network operators and broadcasters will be better served investing in high-capacity overlay networks, such as LTE. That’s the way to boost long-term take up of mobile TV.”

Earlier this year Chilean mobile operator Entel PCS had performed LTE tests at Universidad de Chile. During the test, done over a real LTE network configuration, attendees had the chance to witness maximum download speeds of 50 Mbps, using 20 MHz (10 MHz for the uplink and 10 MHz for the downlink).