A select group of mobile phone users in Oxford will soon have the chance to sample the brave new world of mobile television. From next week, up to 400 users of the O2 network will be able to watch BBC and BSkyB channels on their mobile phone screens in a trial designed to test the technology and gauge user reactions.

Some video content has already been made available on mobile phones, but most has been limited to short clips rather than continuous broadcasts. Public enthusiasm has been measured, although the mobile operator 3 is estimated to have made £250,000 from phone users who downloaded clips of this summer’s Big Brother to their phones.

Earlier this year, a series of one-minute episodes of the American drama show 24 were made specifically for Vodafone handsets, but the Oxford trial, run jointly by O2 and Arqiva, a company specialising in digital TV and new media, will involve the first attempt to broadcast multi-channel TV direct to phones within the UK.

The participants will be given Nokia 7710 smartphone equipped with DVB-H (digital video broadcasting – handheld) transmission technology. They will not have to pay for the TV streams during the trial, but they will have to pay for voice calls.

Dave Williams, O2’s chief technology officer, said the trial would help to establish a model for of future projects. "As an emerging industry, mobile TV will require a willingness of operators, regulators, broadcasters and handset suppliers to strike new deals," he said.

"Regulators need to licence new spectrum, which will allow global economies to exist, broadcasters and publishers will need to tackle digital rights issues and operators develop workable revenue sharing partnerships. By establishing relationships through activities such as this, we hope that potential challenges will be minimised and mobile TV becomes a commercial reality sooner than is currently possible."

Representatives of the entertainment industry remain to be convinced that such an approach will prove popular. "It’s a mistake to take one form of media and put it onto another," said Bruno Maglione, president of the film company Marvel Enterprises. "I don’t believe in the idea of looking at a phone monitor for 30 minutes."

Jessica Sandin, principle analyst of mobile content and applications at Informa Telecoms & Media said service providers would have to overcome problems resulting from differences between the wide range of handsets on the market, which may require content to be broadcast in a variety of formats.

But Ms Sandin said these disadvantages could be overcome. "Despite the limited uptake of mobile media beyond ringtones, many brands are now eyeing opportunities to deliver mobile services directly to consumers," she said. "It’s now clear to both the media and music industries that mobile can become another media channel and, unlike the fixed internet, there’s also a ready-made billing mechanism."

Last week the satellite broadcaster BSkyB - an associate company of Times Online - announced that it would start broadcasting news and sport channels to mobile phones early next year.

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