Boxing fans will soon be able to use their mobile phone to join Lennox Lewis as he prepares for his next fight.
Net connection company Freeserve is giving people the chance to follow Lewis from training camp to dressing room before and after his next fight via video clips on the web.
Fans pay £1 a day for access by getting an SMS message on a Vodafone handset or by calling a premium rate phone number.
The success or failure of this first serious trial of micropayment systems could help determine if web-based companies are ever going to make money out of digital consumers.
Fight night
On 21 April world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is due to fight American boxer Hasim 'The Rock' Rahman at Carnival City in Johannesburg.
The fight is being televised on BBC television, radio and Sport Online but now fight fans are getting the chance to follow Lewis right up to moment he steps in the ring, and to see what happens in the dressing room after the bout is over.
Web portal Freeserve has signed a deal with Lewis's management to film the boxer at his training camp and behind the scenes before and after the fight. "It's the kind of access you don't usually get," said Roger Craven, mobile business manager from Freeserve who helped broker the deal.
Those signing up will be able to watch two six minute video clips per day which show edited highlights of the last 24 hours at training camp, unedited streams of sparring, interviews with Lewis, his sparring partners and any celebrity visitors.
Mr Craven said on the day of the fight Freeserve will have live cameras in Lewis's dressing room to see how he prepares, who pops in to wish him well and what happens when the fight is over. "We might have a bit of a problem with the language used," said Mr Craven, "but that's the type of drama we are looking for."
Consumers get access to the video clips using a code number. Vodafone customers can get a code via SMS by typing their phone number into the Freeserve site, non-Vodafone customers can call a premium rate number. Each code costs £1 and gives 24 hours of access to the boxing site.
The trial is one of the first serious tests of micropayment technology that let people pay for what they use. Mr Craven said he expected the low cost and the instant access to attract many more visitors than usual pay-per-view deals. "Before now people have had to enter a reasonably large sum into an electronic wallet as payment against a future promise," he said.
Mobile messages
Text messages are hugely popular among mobile phone users. The Mobile Data Association estimates that over 808 million of them were sent by UK handset owners in February 2001. The number of messages sent is likely to grow as many companies are looking to use SMS to win over customers who will spend more later when future mobile networks are created.
"A lot of people have suddenly come to the conclusion that SMS represents their best shot at prototyping a 3G business model," said Andrew Bud, founder of SMS management company MBlox.
But, he said, the lost messages and delivery delays experienced by consumers will not be tolerated by businesses who want to make money from the service. He said MBlox was working with lots of companies to put in place systems that ensure messages get delivered intact and they reach the right person.
"Both operators and service providers and advertisers are beginning to understand the power of a medium that goes straight on to the telephone of 43 million people," he said.