Mobile Foxtel Gets ABC1 And SBS Content

 title=If you watch Foxtel on your NextG mobile phone, you might have noticed a couple of extra channels appearing yesterday, with Telstra announcing they’ve added ABC1 and SBS ONE TV content to their mobile Foxtel offering for no additional charge.

What’s really interesting is that the SBS stream appears to be streaming SBS ONE as it happens (well, with a 10-40 second delay as the content is encoded and pushed out), which means that Mobile Foxtel subscribers should get access to all the World Cup matches broadcast on the main SBS channel. Considering that Optus is the “official” World Cup Mobile Broadcaster in Australia, and presumably paid a crap load of cash to have that honour, I can’t imagine they’d be too happy that people on NextG will get the Live matches at the same time.

Also worth noting is that football content is free for Optus customers, yet you’ll need to buy a Mobie Foxtel pack of some description to get the SBS content on NextG.

UPDATE: Optus have clarified exactly what they’re offering for the World Cup, and it’s better than just streaming SBS ONE:

In terms of content, Optus is the Official FIFA Mobile Broadcast Partner in Australia. Some key points surrounding our offering is that Optus’ live streaming is 100% free to our customers for all 64 games – which includes games being played simultaneously (customers can choose which game to watch). It’s also optimised for mobile – FIFA will have cameras at each ground which are capturing a mobile specific feed which means that even on a small screen, it’s much clearer and easier to see the action as opposed to a retransmitted TV broadcast.

Optus’ content offering also goes well beyond live streaming, featuring FIFA content such as archived clips, news, SMS goal alerts.

Still, if you’re a football fan looking for the ability to watch the World Cup on a NextG phone, this will make you happy…

[Mobile Foxtel]