Crown Castle International is looking for a partner to finance an ambitious project to beam digital TV to mobile phones — and now’s as good a time as any to find one. [...] The mobile TV network envisioned by Crown Castle could cost up to $1 billion to build, UBS Investment Research says.
More from [Yahoo!News] :
“Crown Castle plans to build TV transmission towers similar to the large radio antennas used by wireless phone companies. Its technology partners include mobile phone maker Nokia and chipmaker Texas Instruments”
Crown Castle owns more than 10,000 wireless towers used by carriers. Growing wireless use has boosted demand for such towers. [...]
In 2003, the firm paid only $12.6 million at a government auction for a block of radio spectrum in the 1.6 GHz band. And in March, Crown Castle formed a mobile media unit. [...]
For its TV service, the company plans to use digital video broadcast technology developed in Europe. Crown Castle and Nokia have been testing the DVB technology in the Pittsburgh area since October. [...]
Crown Castle’s foray into digital TV doesn’t hold a lot of risk for shareholders, at least not yet, says Klarman. “Crown isn’t committing a lot of their own funding to it,” he pointed out. “They’re looking at external capital.”
Media giants such as Viacom, Walt Disney and Time Warner loom as possible funding partners because their TV audiences have been shrinking.”
Read more chez [Yahoo!] via [Engadget]