The Football Fever

A large number of football fans are keeping in touch with the
game through their mobile phones

The FIFA World Cup 2010 started on June 11. The game fever
is gripping India, even though the country is not known for its football skills,
as compared to any other part of the world. Telecom operators are innovating
numerous value added services to drive the data traffic by broadcasting news and
matches of the Word Cup 2010 to kickstart in South Africa.

Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry has launched more
than two dozen applications for the FIFA World Cup 2010 for its users. These
applications can deliver everything one needs to know about football.
Commentaries, exclusive interviews and vivid photos can be accessed though the
application, innovated especially for the world cup. Besides, these
applications, mostly free or having a nominal download changes of $3-4, will
deliver instant, real-time access to breaking football news. The application
supports several languages, including English, Spanish, French and Italian.

Operators are also offering live streaming of matches on
mobile phones to football followers on the move. The German Telekom mobile phone
customers can watch live word cup matches after paying €4.95 a month. The German
Telekom will show all the sixty-four games of the world cup live and also offers
a post coverage of the matches. Apart from this, game summaries and about 500
historic football videos are also available.

In South Africa telcos are expected to raise the in-bound
roaming charges, as the influx of foreign tourist will grow manifold. Consumer
Focus, a statutory organization campaigning for a fair deal for consumers in the
UK, warned that thousands of England fans traveling to the 2010 FIFA World Cup
could face huge mobile phone bills. Costs for calls, texts and data usage could
add up to over £100 on a match-day, more than the £55-80 face value of a ticket.

Figures compiled by the consumer champion show that
customers could face particularly big fees for uploading photos or videos to
social networking sites during the contest. Costs to use mobile Internet of
£1.25 to £8 per megabyte could leave customers paying, for example, up to £80,
just to upload ten photos on Facebook. Charges to make calls range from 80p up
to £1.50 per minute and texts cost from 25p to 50p.

The trend is also picking up in India. A recent study
conduced by Nielsen Global Online Survey in India said that 34% people surveyed
would be interested in keeping an update of the game on mobile phones. According
to the survey eight in ten (81%) Indians would follow the live telecast of the
game on the television, 58% would follow the game in the newspaper, and a half
(51%) would watch the games in delayed broadcasts and highlights on TV.

Akhilesh Shukla

akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in