Streamezzo played a role in China Mobile Communications’ ability to offer mobile TV coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games, and it’s now ready to talk about it.
The Paris-based company supplied its Universal Software Platform to China Mobile for getting the TV service to mobile devices. Streamezzo only had about four months, from start to finish, to make sure its solution would work flawlessly when the games began on Aug. 8. Fortunately, it went off without a hitch. “For us, it’s really a milestone,” said Streamezzo CEO Pierre-Emmanuel Struyven. “We are really glad we could show that our technology could support such a massive rollout.”
Usually, services like this have a soft launch before the hard launch, but not this time. At launch, Streamezzo needed to support more than 60 types of handsets, and the service needed to work properly for the opening ceremonies, one of the peak usage times.
The Olympics resulted in about 4,000 hours of TV watched over 15 channels, and about 7 million video-on-demand sessions.
Among China Mobile’s decision criteria in selecting a technology partner was a requirement to support both TD-SCDMA and GSM/EDGE networks.
Streamezzo continues to work with China Mobile in what it considers a long-term relationship. Other Streamezzo deployments are in France, Israel and Australia.