Gilbert in strong FLO defence
Qualcomm has proved in its Sky trial that MediaFlo not only outperforms DVB-H, but even out-performs its own claims for the technology, President of Qualcomm Europe Andrew Gilbert said.
Gilbert said that Sky’s recent trial of MediaFlo confirmed that the technology offers twice the capacity of DVB-H. Or else the same capacity with half the base stations.
Not only that, but the announcement that AT&T will combine MediaFLO services with UMTS services means that the technology will be proven to work in an interactive and blended way with UMTS services.
But Gilbert admitted that although, in his opinion, MediaFLO is a clear leader, its adoption in Europe will have little to do with technology. Politics, regulation and markets will all play an important role. Still, he holds out hope that as there has been very little spectrum awarded (Italy and Finland so far) there is still time time for FLO. And there’s room too, he said, as there is “probably” space for two mobile broadcast networks per country/ territory.
“I also know that where MediaFLO is delivered it’s going to give DVB-H a real problem. There’s a reason nobody has chosen DVB-H in the US – and that’s because they don’t want to compete with MediaFLO.”
Despite this, Gilbert pointed out Qualcomm's commitment to its multi mode TV chip, supporting FLO and DVB-H. Qualcomm’s presentation of the multi-mode chip is that it is aimed at giving handset manufacturers piece of mind to develop suitable handsets no matter which way the network cookie crumbled.
There was also endorsement from Gilbert of Qualcomm’s treatment of Flash OFDM since its acquisition of Flarion – Gilbert’s own former company.
“Contrary to what everyone said, Qualcomm has not buried Flash ODFM. The rollouts continue in Slovakia [T-Mobile] and Finland [Digita], and there is a small but growing ecosystem of devices around the technology,” he said.
Flash OFDM, now a proprietary standard, would migrate through 3GPP2 to form the basis of the UMB standard, Gilbert said, and Qualcomm will also be submitting elements of Flash OFDM to 3GPP for LTE standardisation, although Gilbert admitted this path would be more problematical
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