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The ability to watch television on tiny handset screens is relatively new. Many of today’s television services simply deliver video-on-demand clips, however. Not MobiTV, which enables phones to receive live TV, often, over third-generation broadband cellular networks.

This week, MobiTV announced it would bring its service to Palm, Inc.'s Treo 650, the most popular smartphone in the United States.

A recent survey by Jupiter Research (owned by the same company as this Web site), found almost twice as many people are interested in watching live TV as are interested in watching downloaded or streamed clips with their handsets.

The Treo 650 MobiTV service supports over 25 channels, including popular news, sports, weather, and entertainment stations—such as MSNBC, ABC News Now, NBC Mobile, ESPN 3GTV, CNBC, FOX Sports, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, The Weather Channel, Comedy Time, California Music Channel, the Major League Baseball Highlight Channel and more.

It is available to Treo 650 owners with major U.S. carriers like Sprint PCS, Cingular Wireless, and Verizon Wireless, as well as to users with unlocked GSM Treo 650 smartphones or on other U.S. operator networks.

Live By Request
In addition to good business, launching live TV for Treo is partially the result of users of the smartphone requesting MotiTV bring its service to them.

The company’s CEO Dr. Phillip Alvelda asserts, "We've literally had thousands of Treo users contact our support lines to request MobiTV. That enthusiasm from the Treo community made the Treo 650 the right entry point for us into the smartphone market."

This release for Treo marks MobiTV's first entry into the smartphone market. It first established the service on a wide variety of other types of handsets. MobiTV for the Treo 650 is available for a monthly charge of $9.99 through MobiTV directly and Handmark, a provider of mobile device applications.