PRESS RELEASE
O2 xda supports Video service in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne Friday, 4 July 2003 – O2 (Online) Limited, a division of mmO2 plc, has become the first company in the world to introduce subscription video services on a mobile device. This service will soon be supported on their PDA-Phone called the xda and Malaysia will be the first country to enjoy such state-of-the-art subscription service in collaboration with an Australian listed public company, GoConnect Ltd (“GCN”).
This video subscription service from GCN is called m-Vision and is delivered using the patented GoTrek technology developed and owned by GCN. Using GoTrek, Malaysian subscribers with an O2 xda will be able to receive TV quality videos over the public GPRS network supported by mobile operators like Maxis, Celcom, Digi and TimeCel.
The O2 xda uses Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition and is acclaimed to be the first in the world to have introduced a device using this platform in 2002. GoTrek leverages this platform to enable the m-Vision video services on the O2 xda.
m-Vision provides a range of content including movie trailers, music videos, video horoscope, sports, business, etc. Additional content including drama, comedy, science and technology, etc, will be introduced over the next 12 months. When online over GPRS, special m-Vision messages are interactive and one tap on the content will link the subscriber to designated websites to book a movie ticket, to purchase the music CD or simply, to obtain more information about the content. The age of m-commerce has finally arrived to Malaysia with subscribers being able to “sample the goods” before they purchase.
For the Malaysian subscribers, m-Vision is providing local content in movie trailers distributed by Golden Screen Cinema group and Speedy Video group for the Malaysian market, and full-length music videos as well as other international video content.
O2 launched the xda in September 2002 in Malaysia and the xda has been very well received across the country and around the world. O2 (Online) Ltd (Malaysia Branch) Country Manager, Ng Kien Lock, said, “We had said in the past months that newer services like video services will be supported on the xda. Now, we are making this come true in Malaysia for xda users through our collaboration with GoConnect using their m-Vision service. This is another first for xda users in the world and is extending the ability of their O2 xda’s while making the xda a true video player on the move.”
“O2, with GoConnect, will offer an exciting subscription package to new and existing xda users from August to enable them not only the convenience to enjoy video on the xda, but also to provide them with a special m-Vision incentive package to reward their loyalty to the company. Existing and new customers of the xda can now email us their name and handphone number at mailto:contactusasia@o2.com to indicate their interest in securing the m-Vision incentive package. This offer will be limited to the first 500 interested parties. With m-Vision, whenever subscribers have a spare moment, they can watch the latest music video, the latest movie offering, or check the latest comment on Wall Street, even when they are not connected to GPRS at that time.”
Commenting on the launch of m-Vision for Malaysia, Mr Richard Li. Executive Chairman of GoConnect said, “We are absolutely delighted to be able to work with a visionary company such as O2 to launch m-Vision firstly to the Malaysian mobile phone market. m-Vision represents the beginning of a whole new entertainment media industry, that of “Mobile Media”. Just imagine the amount of spare time your mobile phone is with you but you are not on the phone or doing mobile computing. Now you can enjoy that spare moment watching your favorite music video on your O2 xda!
We have also been working closely with Microsoft to deploy m-Vision on the Microsoft Pocket PC, the Pocket PC Phone such as the O2 xda, and the Microsoft Smartphone. While there are at present a handful of video capable phone devices in the market place, and users of these devices are able to pull down short video clips for viewing, there is at present not any other established media service like m-Vision that will provide the variety and the TV quality image of videos like m-Vision for the hand held device, regardless of their Internet connection speed. The m-Vision video subscription service is now live and can be purchased online at
www.m-vision.tv.”
For further information regarding this Media Release, please contact Mr Ng Kien Lock of O2 (Online) Limited on +60 12 3887661 or by email to
kienlock.ng@o2.com; or Mr Richard Li of GoConnect Ltd on +61 3 99937000 or by email to
Richard.li@goconnect.com.au .
About mmO2 plc and O2 (Online) Limited
mmO2 plc is a leading provider of mobile communications services in Europe with a strong position in mobile data and Internet services. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of approximately 5 billion GBP and has 20 million mobile phone subscribers. The company is made up of mobile assets in four countries, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland. Additionally, it has operations on the Isle of Man and a leading Internet portal business.
With its technological insight and deep commitment, it intends to lead the field in data services with the highest quality networks and state-of-the-art wireless solutions.
mmO2 were pioneers in introducing GPRS and in December 2001 its Manx Telecom business launched its third generation network, the first fully operational 3G system in Europe.
In 2002, the company launched its new multimedia-messaging service. Users of the service are able to send and receive media-rich messages - a combination of text, sounds, images and video - to specially enabled handsets. O2 xda was introduced into the European and Asian markets as a state-of-the-art PDA-Phone to enhance the usage of GPRS and mobile data services.
In 2003, the company plans to exploit newer capabilities as they become more widely available, in particular GPRS, providing mobile devices with 'always on' connections to web-based services. It will be launching full mobile web browsing and a range of exciting new mobile devices to make the most of these capabilities.
O2 (Online) Limited has its headquarters in Singapore and currently operates in Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and South Korea. Its focus is to work with mobile operators in the Asia Pacific region to strengthen their mobile data revenue in the coming years by leveraging the experience and leadership of mmO2 plc in Europe. O2 xda was introduced to the various markets that O2 operates in 2H 2002.
http://www.o2.com
http://www.myxda.com
About GoConnect Ltd
GoConnect Ltd (“GCN”) is an online media communications company listed on the Australian and German stock exchanges. GCN prides itself on its ability to deliver TV quality interactive audio/video content via the Internet regardless of the connection speed of the user, broadband or narrowband, wired or wireless with the use of its
patented GoTrek push technology. GCN has already launched 11 video content channels over the past 18 months on fixed line Internet,
http://www.gotrek.com.au/gotrek/now_showing.shtml, while at the same time the company has entered into affiliate agreements with 12 organizations to promote and to distribute the patented GoTrek technology. See attached link:
http://www.gotrek.com.au/gotrek/download.shtml. GCN, powered by GoTrek, delivers global television via the public Internet infrastructure by defying the limitations of narrowband, which of course remains the access mode for over 90% of the world's online population.
Having successfully introduced GoTrek TV to the fixed line Internet world, GCN has now extended GoTrek as a video subscription service branded as m-Vision (
www.m-vision.tv ) to the wireless Internet, again defying the limitations of WiFi, GPRS, CDMA1x, or 3G in delivering TV quality audio/video to the mobile device. With the patented GoTrek push technology, consumers can finally receive "Mobile Media" in TV quality over the wireless Internet on hand held devices.
GCN is working with a number of WiFi hotspot operators, mobile carriers and mobile device vendors in Asia and Australia to adopt m-Vision to promote the usage of the wireless Internet network, from WiFi to GPRS to CDMA1x to 3G. As a push technology, GoTrek enables mobile carriers to optimize the utilization of their network capacity over the 24 hours, providing far superior economies and efficiency to a mobile network compared to the current on-demand system of retrieving video or other content onto the mobile device. For content providers, again unlike the current system of on-demand video, pulled and downloaded onto the handset by the subscriber, the m-Vision service is supported by a sophisticated content management system to ensure that GCN, rather than the subscriber, retains the ultimate control over the content delivered.
www.m-vision.tv
www.gotrek.com.au
www.thebestmix.com
http://www.goconnect.com.au/
Linear Mode
