The advent of 3G in India is for sure going to heavily drive mobile TV in India and it makes this market quite attractive not only for service and content providers but for the technology enablers too. Reportedly Qualcomm, the global patents holder for code division multiple access (CDMA) technology is all geared up to enter the Indian mobile television market.
Qualcomm’s move is not just targeting television on mobile phones, but also to provide MediaFLO services for television sets and also on personal music and video players.
What exactly is MediaFLO?
Qualcomm says MediaFLO system is a mobile broadcast platform that delivers streaming television and video, Clipcasting video and real-time data services to the mobile environment. MediaFLO technology enables the convergence of the broadcast and wireless worlds to provide business opportunities throughout the mobile broadcast ecosystem. Leveraging the global and open Forward Link Only (FLO™) air interface standard, MediaFLO technology provides greater capacity and reduced content delivery costs because it is specifically designed for mobile broadcasting.
“We are waiting for 3G rollout in India, which would enable us to introduce mobile television for cell phone users, and this is a big focus area for us.” said Omar Javaid, Vice-president, Business development, Qualcomm MediaFLO Technologies as quoted on televisionpoint.
As per the market research done by Springboard Research, the potential market size for mobile TV services is estimated to be $360 million in 2008 and 84 per cent of the current mobile phone users are interested in using Mobile TV service provided the service is commonly available and affordable.
