Qualcomm’s FLO Mobile TV Service Aims to Impress at CTIA

7:30 am on April 8, 2006 | Category: Mobile Devices, Wireless Technology

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This week’s CTIA Wireless trade show was the setting for the first large-scale demo of Forward Link Only (FLO) mobile television technology.

At least one FLO broadcasting tower was set up in Las Vegas, delivering nine streaming video channels at 15 frames per second. This made it possible for the demo phones at the Qualcomm, Samsung, and LG Electronics booths to demonstrate fully functional mobile video in action.

Such activity easily eclipsed the circuit board mounted demo boxes that were being used by rival vendors to show off the DVB-H wireless video standard. Although DVB-H operator, Modeo, made some crucial announcements, and recruited several new companies for its Digital TV Forum, its lack of a live demo network caused the competing standard to be little more than an afterthought on the show floor.

The true competition between the two leading wireless video standards will begin in early 2007, when both Qualcomm and Modeo plan to begin the commercial roll-outs of their mobile television networks.

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    1. Hi,

      I live in Europe and Mediaflo is absolutely nowhere there.

      A number of countries are launching DVB-H (starting with Italy this year) and one can harldly believe Qualcomm will manage to launch anything significant.

      Heard US broadcasters are complaining that Mediaflo will interfere with their systems. Is that true?

      Comment by Theo — April 8, 2006 #

    2. The reason that MediaFLO is gaining ground in North America is the partnership with Verizon, which already offers a fairly popular mobile media network. FLO technology does seem to be progressing nicely, but it really all comes down to the endorsement from a major carrier.

      As for the interference issue, yes some broadcasters have raised complaints. An article about it can be found by clicking here.

      I’m not sure how much of an impact MediaFLO will make on other signals, but it’s definately a point of concern.

      I’d be interesting to hear if TV reception was any worse in Vegas last week, during the conference…

      Comment by Jeremy — April 9, 2006 #

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