The Russian telco VimpelCom will start trialling its mobile TV service in Moscow on December 7.
Cableman reports that customers who purchase Samsung DVB-H enabled handsets will be able to watch the service free of charge in ‘test zones’ in the capital during the test period.
The service will offer eight federal channels, plus a number of additional channels, the carriage of which is still being negotiated.
Three companies – the VimpelCom subsidiary Dominanta, Digital Broadcasting and Centaur – have been awarded DVB-H licences for Moscow.
VimpelCom is one of the three largest mobile operators in Russia, and the other two (MTS, the market leader, and MegaFon) also have plans to launch mobile TV services.