Of all the various mobile tech news subjects I come on and blog about, it's hard to imagine anything more exciting than announcements like the following. Broadcasters at the nation's capital have decided Washington will be the first U.S. city to get free digital TV for mobile devices.

Using new "mobile DTV" technology, broadcasts identical to those beamed to TV sets (including the advertising) will start in late summer from local affiliates of CBS, NBC, PBS and Ion and one independent station owned by Fox.

Cheap mobile phones are main candidates for the technology since carriers have seen little enthusiasm with home TV services that require subscriptions.

Broadcasters plan to quickly start broadcasts in more than 24 other cities by the end of the year, covering 39 percent of U.S. households. Among the target cities are New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta.