Rok scores live World Cup TV for mobiles

We weren’t expecting to see live World Cup games on our mobs till South Africa 2010, but Rok has time-shifted our expectations with this black box: a TV streamer that’ll let you watch all of your channels live on a mobile.

The BLCX connects to your TV and throws channels – even ones from your Sky digibox – directly to your phone via your broadband connection.

Unlike Rok’s existing service, there are no extra subscription fees, and you change channels using your mobile keys.

So, which phones will it work with? At the moment you’ll be able to sign up with any Symbian or Java smartphone, and Rok is doing final testing to ensure compatibility with ‘selected’ Microsoft ones.

It all sounds very Slingbox-esque [story here], although Rok’s newbie has two big advantages over its US telly thrower – it’ll be available in the UK a week before the World Cup kicks off on June 1st, and it works with pocketable mobiles rather than laptops.

Slingmedia, though, has struck back by announcing its new beta SlingPlayer Mobile software which will similarly let its box chuck TV to PDAs and Windows Mobile smartphones. It’s available in US from April, but won’t be UK-bound till later this year.

Virgin’s live TV service for mobiles via DAB is expected to launch in late summer [story here], while the other big mobile TV hope – Nokia and O2’s DVB-H services – probably won’t arrive till the 2012 Olympics.

Which all means one thing – if you want to guarantee seeing every minute of football’s Glastonbury this summer, you’ll need to buy Rok’s black box for £250, or rent it for £12 a month. Keep an eye on Rok’s site for more details.