Vodafone Signs Major Video Contract

RealNetworks and Vodafone have formed a relationship to enable audio and video on selected mobile phones across Vodafone's territories. RealNetworks has been selected by Vodafone to provide mobile media delivery solutions technology to power audio and video services for Vodafone live!

"The relationship between RealNetworks and Vodafone is a major step forward in making mobile media a mainstream reality," said Rob Glaser, Chairman and CEO, RealNetworks, Inc. "We are very excited about working with Vodafone to enable content providers to offer content to consumers, and for consumers to access the media they want, when and where they want it."

Vodafone has equity interests in 28 countries and Partner Networks in a further 8 countries, serving over 112 million proportionate customers. At the end of April 2003, six months after the launch of live!, Vodafone had connected over a million Vodafone live! customers.

The Helix Universal Mobile Server and Helix Universal Mobile Gateway enable Vodafone and its partners to offer their consumers audio and video services in both 3GPP compliant standards-based formats and RealAudio and RealVideo. Other elements of the solution include media download, asset management technologies and the RealOne Mobile Player for mobile devices.

Both Nokia and Ericsson are embedding the Real Player in their handsets, although at a recent Video Workshop held in London, Nokia representatives suggested that they may not pre-install the Real Player in their handsets from next year as they switch to an open systems based video player."

Posted to the site on 2nd July 2003