Last month, ICO Global Communications announced a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and Hughes Network Systems to launch a mobile video network in two US cities, starting in Spring of 2008.

The "Mobile Interactive Media" service includes in-car video, broadcasting 8-15 channels plus interactive navigation, and other information like emergency voice and test messaging. The mobile video offering will be delivered via satellite and repeater network, and will be offered at a month subscription charge (hmm, sound familiar?).

ICO plans to roll out a more extensive repeater network (somewhere between 1,600 and 2,500 repeaters) with a goal to cover 74% of the US population, in up to 100 US metropolitan areas, starting in 3Q07. Note that ICO isn't targeting the handheld video player market - only the in-vehicle market.

TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar wrote in a recent report that, "ICO will face competition from Sirius, which already plans to launch a three channel mobile video service later this year, and could conceivably face competition from MediaFLO, as that company builds out its national footprint."

Farrar also considered other potential services that ICO could participate in like "a next generation OnStar service (with an addressable market of several million vehicles) or provide interactive navigation services (again with a potential opportunity of perhaps several million vehicles given the level of competition from other providers)."

TMF estimates that the costs would run up to $100k per repeater (or $250M for the 2,500 repeater network)... which is peanuts considering what XM/Sirius have spent.