3’s X-Series mobile service: Just out and already troublesome
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What an awful start. The new Three X-Series was unveiled last week. Drum rolls, red carpet for this very promising package service that combines flat rate VoIP calls using Skype (through iSkoot’s pipe), Yahoo and Windows Live mobile, and playing multimedia content via Orbit and Slingbox, all together. But for the last services, X-Series could face its first backslash.
The problem rises from TV licensing agreement. As the Register reports it: “The TV Licensing Authority said that a user’s home TV license would cover users while watching on a handset that was battery powered. As soon as that handset is plugged into the mains electricity, though, a TV license must exist for the premises supplying the electricity or the user has committed an offense.”
Some broadcasters prohibit such a use. It’s the case of BSkyB’s Sky satellite television, which provides sports and blockbuster movies. As an immediate answer, Hutchinson/Three said that retailers did not have to inform TV Licensing if a handset capable of receiving television is sold in the same way that they do for televisions. Okay, but now, they need to figure out how to convince users that won’t go intro trouble.
Nov 23, 2006 | By Nuno
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[…] But while using Sling in the US to get video streams onto a cellphone is tolerated, using it in other countries like the United Kingdom brings a lot of trouble. Mobile operator Hutchinson-3 knows something about this; its X-Series offering (combining Skype and Sling among other services) was prohibited by British broadcasters. […]