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The HTC-built Pocket PC TV phone Modeo demoed at the CTIA Wireless show in April has earned the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) seal of approval for release in the U.S. With plans to start rolling out a DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) - one of several digital TV standards on the road to market (Qualcomm's MediFlo is the most notable of the others). - television network later this year, the mobile television company now has at least one device consumers can use to watch their favorite shows while on the run in its pocket.

Standards like DVB-H broadcast television signals separately from traditional cellular-data networks, freeing up precious bandwidth for this other mobile operator content while promising better quality video to the consumer than current handset TV technologies like Modeo's own MobiTV brand, which piggyback video over regular cellular-wireless bands.

At least that's the idea companies like Modeo are attempting to sell to carriers who are, nevertheless, often reluctant to support anything that gets people using anything to access content off their networks.

Modeo successfully pilot tested a DVB-H mobile broadcast network in Pittsburgh (where it is headquartered) back in 2005. The company plans to officially launch service in select major U.S. markets, including New York City before the end of year, with nationwide deployment for the top 30 U.S. markets targeted for 2007.

Codenamed Foreseer, the Windows Mobile 5.0 Modeo smartphone is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device that measures 4.1 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches and weighs 4.23 ounces. It has a Texas Instruments OMAP850 200 MHz CPU, 64 MB of ROM, 64MB of RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a microSD card slot (for up to 2 GB of extra storage), a 1.3 megapixel camera, and, of course, a DVB-H tuner.

An NVIDIA Go-Force 5500 graphics engine operates the Pocket PC Phone's 2.2-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel), 64K-color touch-screen display at up to 30 frames per second. A 1150 mAH lithium-ion battery provides up to three hours of TV viewing, four hours of talk time or six days of standby time, Modeo says.

In the spring, PDAStreet got a chance to use the smartphone while it was receiving television signals from an ad hoc DVB-H network. It felt comfortable in the hand and, more importantly, reception appeared smooth. Not too surprising under the heavily controlled circumstances.

We were told the Foreseer smartphone should ship some time during the second half of the year, to coincide with Modeo’s planned DVB-H network launch. So the Pittsburgh-based company may be on schedule to put television broadcasts into the hands of users by the of end of the year after all.

Modeo joined giants Motorola, Nokia and Texas Instruments to form the Mobile Digital TV Alliance earlier this year. The purpose: Promote best practices and open standards that deliver premium-quality broadcast television to mobile devices for the North American market using DVB-H.

Whether or not consumer swill be ready for a true mobile TV experience is open to debate, however.

Modeo's fellow Mobile Digital TV Alliance member Nokia's N92 DVB-H handset was also approved by the FCC recently. Nokia said it expects to ship the N92 in this country during the second half of 2006.

This smartphone has a 2.8-inch anti-glare QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution screen with 16 million colors and dedicated media keys.

It supports the new Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map, which provides a semi-transparent zoomed-out view of a web page that enables users to quickly orient themselves on a small screen.

An expansion slot handles up to a 2 GB memory card for around 1500 songs delivered through the built-in stereo speakers or a stereo headset. There's also an FM radio. Additional features include a 2-megapixel camera and e-mail attachment support. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi (802.11g), infrared, Bluetooth wireless technology as well as USB 2.0.