On the evening before Qualcomm launched its Mobile World Congress presence by demonstrating FLO TV on a smartbook, I was dozing in front of Olympics coverage, watching AT&T Mobile TV ads that showed a figure skater on a smartphone. It may not have had the cachet of Will.I.Am demonstrating FLO TV at the Superbowl (see below), but it did have more concrete applicability to the Olympics coverage. And the price AT&T offers for its dedicated mobile channels may provide a template for FLO TV, Mobile DTV, and future DVB-H providers.
If I was coy, I’d tell you I fell asleep in front of the HD screen and dreamed of an Alice-in-Wonderland mobile TV world where dozens of light-rail riders and pedestrians in the Emerald City were too busy watching Lost and American Idol to talk with others. But not only would that be trite and untrue, you could point out that citizens already dwell in cocoons courtesy of their iPods and iPhones, and the addition of mobile TV would change very little. Besides, the question for mobile broadcast (FLO and DVB-H) is no longer whether consumers will watch such services, but whether a large enough carrier infrastructure can ever make price points make sense.
By putting FLO on a smartbook, Qualcomm is showing that a mobile system with larger display can give mobile TV more viability than it might otherwise have on a resolution-limited smartphone. But it’s fair to ask whether the history of the MediaFLO protocol gives us hope. Remember, FLO was demonstrated by handset manufacturers back in 2006. At the time, Qualcomm has hoping to find a business model by which wireless operators would aid the investment in dedicated 700-MHz Block D antenna networks. Service providers’ investment conservatism in the last three years forced Qualcomm to become a bundled service provider offering a Content Delivery Network in its own right – hence, the branded FLO TV was born.
At MWC, Qualcomm is introducing FLO-EV, an enhanced service aimed at Europe that offers an improved link margin, to lower CAPEX and OPEX for service providers developing their own networks. Let’s face it, this is the initiative Qualcomm, and the mobile TV application developers, sorely need. Sure, FLO will face competition from DVB-H in Europe and the new Mobile DTV network in the U.S. But the question no longer is, “If we build it, will they come?” Now, Qualcomm and its mobile-TV protocol competitors must ask, “Can we incentivize operators to build a network?” Qualcomm’s own FLO TV offerings can only be seen as a gap-filler. Eventually, the burden must be taken up by Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and perhaps some new dedicated service providers in this space.
Loring
