[opendtv] Qualcomm plans mobile TV offensive
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 18:45:51 -0500
Qualcomm plans mobile TV offensive
Junko Yoshida
Feb 18, 2005 (11:25 AM)
URL: http://www.commsdesign.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=3D60402056
CANNES, France - Qualcomm Inc. said it will launch
its proprietary MediaFLO mobile TV technology in the
U.S. this year with an eye toward making it an
international standard.
The move, announced at this week's 3GSM World Congress
here, pits Qualcomm (San Diego) against the European
DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) and T-DMB
(Terrestrial-Digital Mobile Broadcast) specs.
Jeffery Lorbeck, vice president and general manager
for MediaFLO at Qualcomm, told EE Times that MediaFLO
has attracted a surprising amount of interest from
European operators. "We are not sure if this is just a
due-diligence thing, but we are listening," he said.
Qualcomm is assembling an industry consortium around
the technology, said Lorbeck. The next step is to
submit its technolgy to a standards organization for
approval as an international spec.
Armed with MediaFLO and 700 MHz of spectrum won in a
2003 U.S. spectrum auction, Qualcomm is set to become
wholesale distributor of a U.S. "mediacast" network.
Late last fall, it established a subsidiary called
MediaFLO USA to help third-generation cellular
network operators deliver low-cost, high-quality
audio and video programs to consumers.
Qualcomm's next objective is the European market.
Claiming there is nothing within its technology
specifically tied to its proprietary CDMA technology,
Omar Javaid, senior director of international
business for MediaFLO, said, "We have global
ambitions."
Javid called competing DVB-H and T-DMB technologies
"not bad" for bringing TV to mobiles, but added,
"Those other technologies are mobile extensions of
existing terrestrial standards. They carry legacies.
They have issues with power, mobility and air
interfaces."
Qualcomm began MediaFLO development two and half
years ago "from a clean slate, with lots of modern
enhancements," said Javid. Such improvements include
adoption of Turbo codes - which deliver a gain of 1
to 2 dB - and a layered modulation scheme for
graceful degradation of mobile TV reception. Besides
real-time streaming capabilities, MediaFLO also
offers "clip casting" that sends files in the
background during off-peak hours and caches them on
a device.
Qualcomm's Lorbeck said, "I am sure if a company
like Nokia threw in their brightest engineers to
develop a brand new [TV-on-mobile] technology, they
would have come up with something very similar to
our FLO technology." Lorbeck described MediaFLO as
an optimal mediacast network technology "without
the constraints of the underlying network."
Qualcomm said it developed the entire MediaFLO food
chain, including chip sets, software and network
architecture.
That's not necessarily good news for rivals. Will
Strauss, president of Forward Concepts (Tempe,
Ariz.), said Qualcomm has the credibility to run a
network because of its experience with its
Omnitrack system for tracking truck fleets. "But
it's yet another proprietary technology that nobody
else is going to play with," added Strauss,
referring to CDMA technology which created
virtually no silicon market for chip vendors other
than Qualcomm.
If MediaFLO enjoys any critical advantage, it's
simplicity. MediaFLO was designed specifically for
cellular network operators, with no TV or radio
broadcasters involved. DVB-H-based mobile TV
services initially depend on two separate networks
- terrestrial broadcast and mobile networks. This
dual-network structure may trouble mobile network
operators who want a large, straightforward return
on their investment. "MediaFLO offers TV-like
functions but it's not a TV broadcast," claimed
Javid.
Copyright 2003 CMP Media, LLC
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