NTT DoCoMo customers found a way to watch free mobile TV, leaving the Japanese mobile giant scrambling to release a new version of is popular mobile TV handset. DoCoMo has had 1seg mobile terrestrial digital TV services available on the Panasonic P901iTV since April and is thought to have sold more than 120,000 of the devices. But some crafty subscribers figured out they could take the heavily subsidized handsets home and then cancel their subscriptions a few days later. This allows them to continue watching digital TV from the device, turning the service into a sort of portable TV. DoCoMo is reported to be losing up to $320 on each device. Word of mouth is spreading, and a number of users have begun joining the scam. DoCoMo's rivals, KDDI and Softbank, offer the same phone and services, but their devices automatically lock down the TV module of the phone if the contract is canceled.
For more about the mobile TV scam:
- check out this report from telecoms.com (sub. req.)