On May 21, the ice-hockey final of the World Championship takes place in Riga, Latvia, and thanks to collaboration between Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) and media company Modern Times Group (MTG), 3G users in both Sweden and Estonia can follow the match on their mobile phones.
People who subscribe to the ice-hockey service will be able to see the goals shortly after they have been scored. They will also have access to specially-edited hockey news, ring tones and national anthems. The service has been available since the start of the World Championship on May 5.
Veiko Sepp, CEO of Ericsson in Estonia, says they were able to quickly introduce the service due to the partners and technical platforms that were already in place. "Ten days after the agreement was signed with MTG, the service was launched - just in time for the World Championship," he says.
"By using the hosted TV and video service and payment platform, IPX, MTG has been able to easily adapt their sport video content for 3G networks and get paid for this content without having to do any of the technical integration themselves. For the service in Sweden we have also cooperated with the Ericsson Mobility World partner Globalmouth, whose expertise in the addressing of the hockey community has been very valuable," he adds.
In Sweden you simply sms HOCKEY to 72401 and you can be in the game.
This is not the first time Ericsson has used its technology in a sports event. The company has huge experience from the Volvo Ocean Race, which it will continue to cover until mid-June, and is hosting platforms for other operators and media companies as well.
"We can do fast launches for media companies and our expertise in the mobile arena makes it easy for them to adapt their content for mobile networks," says Sepp.
Henrik Sundewall, COO of MTG New Media AB underlines, that the mobile service for the World Championship has been launched with a great speed and enthusiasm by Ericsson and MTG. "It has been given us a lot of experience to be used in the future media events, where the innovative mobile services will add new experiences to the MTG customers," he says.
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