Catching Euro 2008 on the two-inch screen

During the World Cup two years ago, a few thousand footy-mad fans in Italy got to watch matches live on their mobile phone handsets. I wrote about the experience of following the action on a two-inch screen for Times Online, giving the service passing marks. The picture quality was surprisingly clear and it was easy to follow. Football is one sport that lends itself fairly well to viewing on a handset. I tried it out later with tennis: a disaster.

The broadcast technology that made it all possible was DVB-H, and it was supposed to spread rapidly through Europe after the World Cup. It has in Italy, but it's still patchy elsewhere. But there are signs of progress on the horizon. Yet again, a series of mobile TV offerings will coincide with Euro 2008, which begins on June 7 in Basel and Geneva.

Once again, the Italians have every game covered. The state broadcaster Rai just announced it has sold broadcast rights to 3 Italia, allowing the mobile operator to broadcast all 31 matches live.

Evidently, footy fans in Poland, Switzerland and the Netherlands too will be able to catch matches on their phone. Perhaps for the 2010 World Cup the technology will be more dispersed through Europe, amounting to an actual market. And, perhaps England fans at that point will care.