One area of telecommunication technology that has been in development throughout 2007 is the area of mobile TV. Verizon (VZ) in conjunction with QUALCOMM (QCOM) launched mobile TV services earlier this year featuring eight different channels. However, it hasn’t quite caught on. Lawrence Harris, analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., explains why:

 TWST: Why hasn’t it caught on? Is it too expensive or there’s not enough programming? What seems to be the problem?

Mr. Harris: I think you have identified one of the issues. The MediaFLO service does have the capability, designed by Qualcomm, to have up to 20 channels. Right now it has eight, so part of it may actually deal with the viewing habits of younger consumers. There is a certain number of people who download videos onto their iPod. They certainly have the capability of downloading videos from the Apple iTunes store onto their iPhone. Live TV may not have the same cachet, frankly, as video downloads, but it is still early in the process.

For the full interview with Mr. Harris, including a complete overview of all aspects of the telecommunications equipment space and stock picks, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Technology Stocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.