MetroPCS to sell phones with TV tuners

MetroPCS Communications became the first U.S. cellphone company to announce plans for a phone that can tune in to live, local television broadcasts.

The capability will be part of a Samsung smartphone coming this year. For years, TV stations have been unsuccessful in getting cellphone companies interested in such phones. Verizon Wireless and AT&T instead sold access to a broadcast network set up by Qualcomm. That network was shut down last year because of low consumer interest. Stephen Jemente, product manager for digital media at MetroPCS, emphasized that its phone will be different in that it will get local stations, with weather and traffic reports. Its customers are also usually young and consume a lot of digital media, he said. MetroPCS didn't say what the TV-capable phones would cost or if it would charge a monthly fee to access TV broadcasts. The phones will have an extendable antenna for the TV signals. It's difficult technically to get phones to tune in to regular broadcasts destined for TV sets. Instead, the Samsung phones will receive special "Mobile DTV" signals broadcast by 72 stations in 32 cities. They're usually retransmissions of their main channels, but at a lower resolution. A few portable TV sets can already receive those signals for free. However, NBC and Fox will be encrypting their signals so they can only be received by the phone app that will be on the Samsung phone, according to Salil Dalvi, co-head of the Mobile Content Venture, which organizes the TV stations using Mobile DTV technology.