TV on our mobiles made a brief foray into public life with the ill-fated (and ill-titled) Virgin Mobile Lobster way back in 2006. We quite liked it, despite the ludicrous name, but since then live mobile TV has been something of a damp squib - but apparently not for much longer.

Starting in October, Orange, O2 and Vodafone will be holding a three-month trial in Slough and West London piping live TV to a test group of handsets via 3G. The service reportedly uses a part of the 3G spectrum that is currently unused by smartphones, meaning your calling and browsing experience won't be affected by a sudden flash mob of people catching up on the football.

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There's no word yet on how the service will work - whether it will require a special subscription package, for instance - or when it will be released to the public, but the part of the 3G spectrum in question apparently covers 60 countries and half a billion mobile subscribers, so we reckon the companies involved will be moving on this pretty sharpish.

Via: The Guardian