Finland’s Sonera and PacketVideo
Monday announced that Sonera will conduct field
trials of PacketVideo’s wireless multimedia services in Finland this summer.
PacketVideo’s MPEG-4 compliant software-based encoding, decoding, and
transmission management products enable wireless carriers to deliver a
variety of content and rich media applications to mobile devices. Sonera is
offering a preview at the CeBIT World Business Fair in Hannover, Germany.
PacketVideo’s software is air-interface independent, allowing the field trial
to use both 14.4 kbps GSM and 43 kbps high-speed circuit switched data
(HSCSD) connections to personal digital assistants (PDAs) and data-capable
mobile phones.
During the field trial, the companies will determine user perceptions of
streaming media on wireless devices. The companies also expect to identify
the types of wireless multimedia services and applications users find most
beneficial so they can be expanded upon for commercial deployment.
“Our vision of wireless services includes a vast array of advanced
applications, many of which depend on multimedia capabilities,” said Pekka
Keskiivari, head of Sonera Mspace. “Thanks to PacketVideo’s groundbreaking
wireless video platform, we can bring these applications to the market in
Finland sooner than expected.”