Always beware anyone promising you free stuff – there can often be catches. And such is the case with ROK’s new mobile TV service, although I should stress they’re honest about the hidden costs.
You watch ROK TV by downloading an application to your phone. The announcement says there are four channels available, covering extreme sports, vintage comedy, classic cartoons and old movies. However, if you check ROK’s channel list, it’s got many more channels, including CNN, Cartoon Network, National Geographic and ITN.
ROK also wants to launch a user-generated channel, ‘YOU-MADE-IT’, which’ll be a mix of viewers’ own cameraphone clips. And yes, it’s free, in that you don’t pay a subscription fee to watch the channels. But the TV is streamed using your phone’s GPRS or 3G connection, so if you pay mobile data charges, you could end up footing a sizeable bill, depending on your tariff.
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About Stuart Dredge
Thanks for the plug, Stuart.
You’re right that FreeBe TV is FREE – and you’re right that we are being honest about what you may have to pay to your network operator if you don’t have a GPRS data bundle in your tariff.
That’s not our fault.
The key thing about FreeBe TV (which you can access via the link on http://www.rok.tv is that now – for the first time – mobile TV is available over GPRS for free!
Just please make sure you don’t end up paying your network through the nose…
Best
Bruce @ ROK