Virgin offers TV on your mobile

Virgin Mobile today looked set to become the first mobile operator to offer UK phone users digital television direct to their handsets.

The company, which is majority-owned by entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, entered into the venture with BT and Microsoft to stream a variety of programmes and radio to phones through the BT Movio broadcast platform and Microsoft Windows software.

The deal was announced at the 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona, the biggest industry event, and the product is expected to be available later this year.

Graeme Hutchinson, sales and marketing director of Virgin Mobile, said: “Virgin Mobile customers will be the first people in Europe to watch real broadcast TV over their mobile phones.”