No-brainer of the Day: Regular TV On a Cell Phone

Kevin Maney smacks his head: While you're lusting over a new iPhone, think about this: Why can't you watch free, regular, over-the-air TV on your phone? Isn't that what you really want -- not these bastardized TV offerings that you have to pay for, like AT&T's Mobile TV and Sprint's MobiTV?

I just got off the phone with Reed Hundt, former chairman of the FCC and now an investor and consultant. He's involved in a number of companies, but he said the one that's most exciting right now is Telegent. It has been working for three years to figure out how to make chips that would go in cell phones and allow them to pick up regular local TV signals. "It's very hard to do," Hundt says. "These are big tall towers that send out low-frequency signals with lots of power, intended to be picked up by big antennae. The antenna in a cell phone is so small you don't even see it because it's inside. Plus you're mobile. Those were to big technology challenges that we solved."

So far, Telegent chips are mostly going into phones in Asia. In Japan, the iPhone doesn't have any ability to pick up TV. Other Japanese cell phones do, thanks to Telegent chips. U.S. carriers, who have angled to be able to charge users for TV, might not be so interested in a free offering. Then again, Hundt says, if people have their phones out and are looking at them, they tend to use them for calls and texting more often. That's apparently Telegent's selling point to the U.S. carriers.

Actually, sounds like an opportunity for one of the carriers to create a differentiated offering. Might get people's attention if it's easy and free to watch the Olympics on your phone while on the train ride home.