[TV WATCH] Bygone are the days when access to a television was required in order to enjoy the beautiful game of soccer. If you find yourself stuck away from your television and are desperate to catch a World Cup match, just use your phone.

The ability to stream live video on a mobile device varies from phone to phone, but if you have what is generally referred to as a “smart phone” (iphone, blackberry, or android), you likely have the ability to stream live soccer matches.

If you happen to be an AT&T customer, you’re in luck, because they have exclusive rights to all of ESPN’s English language mobile World Cup broadcasts. All you need to do is download MobiTV or AT&T mobile TV, and pay the $10 monthly service charge. This will give you access to ESPN Mobile TV.

Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile users will also have the ability to stream matches to their mobile devices, although they won’t have access to all the matches that AT&T subscribers do. The ESPN Mobile TV web site breaks down how to stream matches depending on your phone service provider.

Univision has the exclusive Spanish-language mobile rights, and its match streams can be accessed by downloading their Univision Futbol application.

Because cell phone service tends to vary depending on your location, it would be wise to connect to a Wi-Fi network when streaming video if you have access to one.

A huge concern is that mobile networks won’t be able to handle the additional strain that throngs of streaming soccer matches will put on their bandwidth. It remains to be seen whether dropped calls and crummy reception become the collateral damage of this generation's desire to push the possibilities of sports viewership onto the mobile phone platform.