Japanese Firm to Test Cell-Phone Video

Japan’s largest mobile phone company said it will test a live video service for phones in October, using technology from San Diego-based PacketVideo Corp. to broadcast distance-learning material and monitoring video from day-care sites and homes.

The deal between NTT DoCoMo and PacketVideo, announced by DoCoMo on Tuesday, lays the groundwork for the world’s first commercial service to deliver streaming video to wireless phones.

Beginning Oct. 1, the two companies will begin five months of tests involving a consortium of companies interested in using or delivering wireless streaming video. If the trial goes well, DoCoMo will begin rolling out video services to the 26 million customers on its i-Mode mobile Internet service.

DoCoMo customers will be able to subscribe to video content providers if they have a new video-capable phone. The phone works on the Japanese carrier’s next-generation mobile network, called FOMA, for Freedom of Multimedia Anywhere.

More than 30 corporations in Japan will participate in the trial, many of them with an eye toward selling various types of subscription video services to i-Mode users.

Among the applications being tested on the streaming video system: virtual travel broadcasts, remote medical treatment, distance learning and live monitoring services for homes, airports, day-care centers and gas appliances.

For PacketVideo, a privately owned company that has been pursuing wireless video for several years, the deal could produce substantial revenue, according to Jim Brailean, PacketVideo’s chief executive.

“This is a big deal for us,” he said. “DoCoMo is a world leader [in wireless services], and it’s important to have them use and validate our services.”

Adam Zawel, a wireless analyst at Yankee Group, also called the streaming video announcement “a big deal.”

Although talk of streaming video has met with skepticism, Zawel said the services are on the horizon.

“When you put together all the developments that are happening in wireless, then video will work,” Zawel said. “The developments on the way are more powerful devices, color screens, faster networks and better personalization engines. . . . With all that, then you can imagine wireless video.”