Leading analyst Frost & Sullivan has saluted 3 Italia for being the first European company to offer free broadcast mobile TV, based on DVB-H, calling the move ‘a successful business model with the right approach'.

The 'free' service works with viewers being able to watch TV channels between 8 am and midnight at no extra cost. Running costs are being met by dynamic advertising which is defined as adverts that will dynamically interact with the users. The La3 service is unique in Europe and at presently, similar offerings exist only in Japan and South Korea.

"3 Italia is demonstrating once more how it can be innovative and farsighted when it comes to the mobile content market", commented Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Saverio Romeo.

Romeo added that the knowledge the firm gained over the last two years has been invaluable to the current proposition. "In May 2006, 3 Italia launched the first commercially viable DVB-H mobile TV solution; this really caught a sceptical market by surprise. Within 3 months, 3 Italia had more than 100,000 mobile TV subscribers. And whilst the other operators were busy catching up with such a success, in August 2007, 3 Italia had more than 700,000 subscribers to its service becoming the largest mobile TV provider in Europe. In addition to the distribution of content, the Italian mobile provider developed also an in house TV production facility and started to sell its own content.

"3 Italia made history by demonstrating that mobile TV could be a successful business model if developed with the right approach. The launch will surely spur the other Italian operators into action and maybe push them to compete head to head with 3 on a free mobile TV platform. The same could happen to other countries across Europe too."