Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 20 June 2007 16:27
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 4
Qualcomm has got off to a good start. Not only has it developed the technology to a fully commercial system, it has invested around $US800 million to build a US-wide MediaFLO network and created a subsidiary, MediaFLO USA to own and operate that network and to be the provider of services on it, setting up all the necessary relationships with content providers.
That investment appears to be paying off. MediaFLO USA has now signed up the two largest cellular services providers in the US, Verizon and AT&T, to offer MediaFLO content services to their customers via new handsets (from LG and Samsung) that support the technology.
Verizon launched in January in 20 markets in the western and mid western USA charging $US15 to $U25 a month for the initial line-up from eight US TV networks. AT&T is due to launch later this year. Verizon has not yet disclosed subscriber numbers.
Qualcomm's ambitions, however extend well beyond the USA. It is already well advanced in getting Flo, the air interface, and MediaFLO, the end-to-end content delivery and management system, accepted as global standards, thanks largely to the efforts of the Flo Forum.
The Forum is an independent body created two years ago by Qualcomm to pursue standardisation for MediaFLO, to generally promote MediaFLO and, critically, to lobby regulators around the world on the need to allocate spectrum for mobile TV services.
According to CFO, MaryBeth Selby, the Forum is not lobbying for spectrum for MediaFLO specifically but on the need for spectrum for mobile TV services of whatever technology. "We are asking the regulators to allocate spectrum that is technologhy neutral and leave it to the market to make the technology choice," she told iTWire.
The Forum now has some 80 members and has, according to Selby taken control over the direction of MediaFLO development with members proposing changes and enhancements that must be endorsed by the Forum before incorporation in the specification. "We act very much like an international standards body," she said.
However, in its battle for global acceptance Qualcomm/MediaFLO is up against a veritable alphabet soup of competing technologies: some regional, some global. Probably the most formidable is DVB-H (digital video broadcast to handhelds) which is based on the DVB-T (terrestrial) standard used for digital broadcasting in many countries, including Australia.
