Get ready to watch TV on your mobile set!

New Delhi, Jan 31: TV on the go, television on mobile set, is barely a Cabinet nod away in India.

After having made a spectacular launch of mobile television in Vietnam and Indonesia, Nokia is all set to deliver the TV experience to mobile devices in India.

''We have entered into an arrangement with Doordarshan to provide necessary technology for this exciting news and entertainment contraption, and India's public broadcaster has already started trial runs for it,'' Mr Pawan Gandhi, Head, Mobile TV, Nokia (Asia Pacific region), told reporters here today.

Being a new technology, it will require the approval of the Indian government before its induction in Indian market, he said.

Mr Gandhi, who presented a live demonstration of Mobile TV, said it would be available on the Nokia N92 series in conjunction with Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) technology, which delivers live digital TV broadcasts, making it as easy to tune into television channels on this device as it is at home.

Asked about the price tag for a mobile TV once it is introduced in India, he said it would be premature to make any conjecture.

''However, in Vietnam, where it was launched recently, the price is in a range of 500-600 US dollars. In India, too, the price will be south-bound because of the sheer volume of consumers,'' he said, the latest gizmo would be eminently affordable for Indians.

Expressing satisfaction over DD's trials now under way, he said the public broadcater had done an extremely professional job in this regard by opting for a world class technology through global tenders.

He, however, made it amply clear that the reach of such a technology would not be pan-India, initially. ''It will function in a terrestrial mode and its reach wil depend on the capacity of transmitters and business plans in a particular area,'' he said, adding that Nokia would provide both device and back-end system.

Asked about the prospects of consumer response in India, the Nokia official quoted a report from the London School of Economics (LSE) to point out that mobile TV, which was first introduced in Europe 5-6 years ago, was extremely popular there.

''It is amazing that people in several European countries prefer to watch TV, not on the stationary sets but on their mobiles, that too during night, because like a phone, they consider this contraption as their personal entertainment consumption device,'' he said, endorsing the report.

After its introduction in India, spouses or family members would not be squabbling over watching a cricket match or a family soap like 'Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi', he said, in a lighter vein.

He also assured that watching TV on a Nokia mobile would be a sheer delight because of its digital quality of pictures and sound.

''We are enthused over the response of such a system in Vietnam and Indonesia. We have plans to launch it in another three-four locations in the Asia-Pacific region over the next few months, and we are extremely hopeful of its successful launch in India.'' About the number of channels to be broadcast on the set, he said at least ten channels can be shown per band. ''If the number of bands is increased, more channels can be viewed,'' he said, adding that the latest technology had the potential to revolutionise the way TV programmes are currently watched.

Its other features, Mr Gandhi said, include four hours talk time, up to 20 hours' music playback time, up to one hour video camera recording time and up to four hours TV viewing time.

For broadcasters and content providers, he said it presented an opportunity to gain new revenues by delivering existing and mobile-specific content to a new audience of mobile viewers watching at new prime times.

''It also offers the possibility to generate additional revenues from shares of subscription fees, interactive services and advertising revenues by driving new audience relationshops.''

UNI