A new service from TextView in Malta turns mobile phones into TVs where Teletext pages from Ceefax and Aertel can be browsed on the move. The speed of the GPRS network means that they are also delivered faster than to a TV.
TextView’s technology picks up live streams of BBC1, BBC2 and RTE text services just like you would on any TV set and then lets you browse them on a mobile phone with fast, easy access and charging provided by Bango.net. Content includes travel updates, the widest selection of sports and horseracing news anywhere on the mobile Internet, flight arrivals for all commercial airports and TV listings. TextView charges
50p per day for use of its service.
“TextView gives people fast access to vital information anytime and anywhere,” said Johanna A. Harink, Marketing Manager of TextView. “There’s a powerful search facility that when you search on ‘roadworks’ and ‘M25’ for example, delivers pages with the latest travel news. Another nice feature is that you can bookmark search strings, allowing for fast and easy daily retrieval of information that’s important for you.”
In the UK, users simply text go textview to 89080 and are sent a message which takes them to the Textview site on their WAP phone with £1.50 ready to spend – the cost of sending this message. When users want to pay for further use of the TextView service, Bango’s innovative technology dynamically offers different payment options depending upon where the user is connecting from and from which network. These include on the phone bill by Premium SMS and operator billing system, by credit/debit card or using a PIN code.
The service is already proving very popular with airport taxi drivers who need to keep track of flight arrivals from their cars. “This service saves us time, money and hassle” said Ken Way of Kenway Cars, a taxi firm located near Stansted Airport. “Minute-by-minute updates of when planes are due to land at all major and regional airports in the UK, means we don’t have to hang around arrival lounges when a flight is
delayed.”
“TextView offers the largest and most up-to-date range of information, more than many of the other mobile portals,” commented Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango.net. “What’s more, it’s available to anyone with a mobile phone, on all operator networks.”
Bango.net’s technology lets content enablers such as TextView easily promote and charge for any mobile content, the most popular being ringtones, pictures, games, and videos. Bango provides automatic payment capabilities enabling hundreds of millions of mobile customers to pay for content and services.