Reuters reports that Qualcomm officials say it would probably not build a mobile television network outside the United States, despite success in the U.S., where it has signed up Cingular and Verizon.
“It’s very unlikely,” Chief Executive Officer Paul Jacobs said in an interview at the 3GSM wireless trade show. He was asked if the win of AT&T, Cingular as its second MediaFlo mobile TV customer was a reason to start building similar networks in Asia or Europe.
“We would be willing to invest, but in most countries broadcasts are regulated and also there are restrictions on foreign ownership,” Jacobs said in an interview.
Nevertheless, Qualcomm and British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB), the leading provider of multi-channel entertainment in the United Kingdom, announced this week the successful completion of a second joint technical trial of MediaFLO in the United Kingdom.
AT&T Cingular is the largest mobile carrier in the U.S., and runs a mobile telephony network using GSM, a standard that competes with the CDMA technology that is marketed by Qualcomm.
“It gives a lot more credibility,” said Jacobs, referring to critics who have asked if Qualcomm’s MediaFlo TV technology would work well with a handset that runs on a GSM/WCDMA handset. WCDMA is the 3G wireless broadband successor of GSM.
Finnish Nokia and many other European industry players favour the homegrown DVB-H standard supported by Aloha Partners’ HiWire and Crown Castle’s Modeo, which have both stuggled to attract supporters with deep pockets.
Sprint and Cingular use MobiTV for streaming video on cell phones. MobiTV currently uses a single 1.25MHz CDMA EV-DO channel for every viewer. MediaFLO, like its mobile tv competitiors HiWire and Modeo, use a broadcast television model, broadcasting to millions, simultaneously.
MobiTV is also trialing a tv service using a mobile WiMAX network that will span a number of Northern California cities. Live HDTV delivered over a Navini pre-mobile WiMAX network has been demonstrated, too.
Related DailyWireless Mobile TV articles include; Mobile TV: Six Flavors, Verizon Launching MediaFLO, Sprint Goes With FLO?, Modeo’s NYC Mobile TV Delayed, Hiwire Moves on Mobile TV, MobiTV + NDS = Content Management, Verizon Wireless Does YouTube, Modeo in NYC, UK Tests TDtv, T-Mobile: 3G, No FLO, Mobile TV Metrics and HDTV from Aircraft.
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