Currently in its pilot phase, DW’s new service MCAST could soon be offering multimedia phone owners regular news reports and up-to-date news briefs from DW-WORLD three times daily, in partnership with Orange and Vodafone. With MCAST, cell phone providers just send the information package once, and any number of subscribers can click and receive. It’s a financial dream come true for the providers, who stand to cut transmission costs by 70 to 90 percent.
“We have created a platform for people to comfortably consume media content,” explained Wilfried Runde, the Internet specialist in charge of Deutsche Welle’s MCAST project. And at just 5 per month for news updates delivered three times a day, the service is good value for money.
After initial trials in Israel, a second pilot was launched in Athens in June. Runde sees it as a good opportunity for Deutsche Welle to reach even more people around the globe. “For the first time, we can offer the mobile transmission of our information to a new user group,” Runde said.