Just months after Alcatel Lucent and SFR hosted DVB-SH trials across the pond comes word that the mobile TV technology is headed Stateside. ICO Global Communications is donning the party hats and going through buckets upon buckets of ice cream in celebration of a successful satellite launch that will eventually bring those yearned-after mobile television goods to the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The ICO G1 was placed into its initial geosynchronous transfer orbit yesterday afternoon, and now the company is eagerly awaiting certification that the bird is fully operational (and can pass the final FCC milestone) by May 15th. If all goes to plan, Las Vegas, Nevada and Raleigh / Durham, North Carolina will be gifted with ICO mim (mobile interactive media) service trials "later this summer," though a commercial launch isn't slated to occur until "later in 2009."

[Via phonemag], image courtesy of WESH]

MediaFLO's clearly the overwhelming favorite in the nascent (or is that nonexistent?) US mobile TV market, having already bagged two of the four national carriers while the other two -- Sprint and T-Mobile -- spin their wheels in trials. On the other side of the fence, though, lies DVB-H, the Europe-wide standard that has inexplicably found virtually zero carrier love in States despite broad manufacturer support. Presently, the US' meager DVB-H efforts are represented by Hiwire's trials alone now that Modeo's slipped its mortal coil and gone to that Big HTC Foreseer in the Sky; that could be about to change, though, with ICO and Clearwire announcing that they'll be bringing a DVB-H trials Raleigh, North Carolina and Las Vegas early next year. Two DVB-H supporters is clearly better than one in the effort to better balance the Qualcomm juggernaut here, but we still need a carrier deal or two to lock it all up. Best of luck, fellas.