MediaFLO was a technology developed by

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

for transmitting audio, video and data to portable devices such as

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

s and personal televisions, used for

mobile television Mobile television is television watched on a small handheld or mobile device, typically developed for that purpose. It includes service delivered via mobile phone networks, received free-to-air via terrestrial television stations, or via satel ...

. Qualcomm operated a mobile

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

service, FLO TV, from 2007 to 2011 using this technology.

Broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

data transmitted via MediaFLO includes live, real time audio and video streams, as well as scheduled video and audio clips and shows. The technology could also carry

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

datacast application data, such as

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange a ...

quotes, sports scores, and weather reports. In October 2010,

announced it was suspending new sales of the service to consumers. In December 2010,

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

announced that it will purchase Qualcomm's FCC licenses in the 700 MHz band. FLO TV discontinued service on March 27, 2011.

History

Devices featuring MediaFLO were introduced by LG and

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

at the 2006

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

. On December 1, 2005, Verizon Wireless and

announced a partnership for the launch of the MediaFLO network.

Commercial rollout

MediaFLO-based pay TV services were first commercially offered on

mobile phones A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

. The service debuted on Verizon Wireless as V CAST Mobile TV in select cities on March 1, 2007, and rolled out nationwide throughout 2007 and 2008.

announced a similar service in February 2007, intended to launch later that year; following delays, AT&T's MediaFLO TV service launched on May 4, 2008. Qualcomm began selling FLO TV directly to consumers in November 2009 with the launch of the FLO TV Personal Television. The Personal Television was manufactured by HTC, and featured a 3.5" touchscreen. It retailed for US$249 at launch, and included a six-month FLO TV subscription; after the trial, a US$15 monthly subscription fee was required to use the service. Later, in August 2010, Audiovox introduced a FLO TV-equipped portable DVD player, which retailed for US$199. From 2009 to 2010, Audiovox produced FLO TV systems for automobiles. The automotive FLO TV system was introduced by

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

in December 2009, as a Mopar dealer-installed accessory on 2010-model vehicles equipped with the Video Entertainment System. Chrysler also offered the FLO TV tuner as an aftermarket upgrade for 2008 and 2009-model vehicles sold with the system. Audiovox, under its Advent brand, began selling third-party automotive FLO TV systems through aftermarket equipment dealers in February 2010. FLO TV competed with Sirius Backseat TV.

Discontinuation

In July 2010, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs stated that the company was suffering financial losses operating FLO TV, and planned to either sell MediaFLO or find a partner to continue its operation. The company reportedly discussed possible collaboration with software developers on other uses of the MediaFLO spectrum, which they stated could include distribution of electronic magazines or newspapers. The company had predicted the total cost to launch the service would be $800 million, including the $683 million that Qualcomm reportedly paid for the spectrum. Qualcomm suspended sales of FLO TV to new customers on October 5, 2010, but stated that the service would remain available to existing customers through the spring of 2011. On October 12, Qualcomm stated that FLO TV would shut down on March 27, 2011. Qualcomm offered rebates to customers who purchased a FLO TV-equipped DVD player or Personal Television, which could be claimed until April 30, 2011. Chrysler also announced plans to reimburse customers who purchased a FLO TV system, though the system was reportedly only purchased by 851 Chrysler customers. On December 20, 2010,

announced that it would purchase Qualcomm's FCC licenses in the 700 MHz band for $1.93 billion. Despite spending $132 million in the previous quarter on bolstering FLO TV, Qualcomm still made a profit on the sale, as it had originally paid $38 million for the former channel 55 and $558 million for the former channel 56.

International trials

Some trials were underway in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with no commitment for a commercial release. In France, Qualcomm tried unsuccessfully to convince TDF to adopt MediaFLO technology. In the UK,

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), trading as Sky, is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers a ...

conducted trials of MediaFLO in 2006.

Programming

All U.S. MediaFLO providers offered a set of 14 basic channels: * 2.FLO (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.) — Original made-for-mobile reports and concerts (added in early 2010) *

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as dult swimand s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

(10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) * ABC Mobile * CBS Mobile — Containing a mixture of sports and other CBS content *

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

Mobile TV — Frequently simulcasting live sporting events from their family of networks * Fox Mobile *

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ow ...

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

Mobile *

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

* NBC 2Go (featuring a mix of programs from the NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo networks) *

Disney Channel Disney Channel is an American pay television television channel, channel that serves as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

Adult Swim time-shared with 2.FLO, as it does on

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

with

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

. Additionally, the "FLO Preview Channel" was a free-to-view barker channel, available without subscription. Verizon offered those 14 channels, plus

MTV Tres MTV Tres, stylized as Tr3s, is an American owned by Paramount Media Networks, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The channel is targeted toward bilingual Latinos and non-Latino Americans aged 12 to 34, and its programming formerly included life ...

and

TLC TLC may refer to: Arts and entertainment Television * ''TLC'' (TV series), a 2002 British situational comedy television series that aired on BBC2 * TLC (TV network), formerly the Learning Channel, an American cable TV network ** TLC (Asia), an A ...

.MediaFLO USA – On Air Now
AT&T, Personal Television, and Automotive systems offered the base 14, plus CNN Live Mobile and Crackle.

Technology

The "FLO" in MediaFLO stood for ''Forward Link Only'', meaning that the data transmission path is one way, from the tower to the device. The MediaFLO system transmitted data on a frequency separate from the frequencies used by current mobile telephone networks. In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, the MediaFLO system used frequency spectrum 716-722 MHz, which had previously been allocated to UHF TV channel 55.01Nov2004 Qualcomm press release regarding 700 MHz spectrum usage for MediaFLO Dailywireless.org- http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/01/07/verizon-launching-mediaflo/ FLO was standardized within

ETSI The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization operating in the field of Information and communications technology, information and communications. ETSI supports the de ...

as TS 102 589,ETSI TS 102 589 "Forward Link Only Air Interface; Specification for Terrestrial Mobile; Multimedia Multicast," V1.1.1 (2009-02) http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/102500_102599/102589/01.01.01_60/ts_102589v010101p.pdf and has components standardized within the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA 1099, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1120, 1130, 1132, 1146 and 1178.) MediaFLO was a competitor to the Korean T-DMB, the Japanese 1seg and the European

DVB-H DVB-H (digital video broadcasting - handheld) is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2 ...

standards. Qualcomm conducted MediaFLO technical trials internationally, with the intention of forming partnerships with existing multi-channel content providers and service operators, but has since discontinued development. The protocol was developed because of the inherent spectral inefficiency of unicasting high-rate full-motion

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

to multiple subscribers. Additionally, traditional

analog television Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, instantaneous phase and frequency, ...

and over-the-air terrestrial digital television signals (

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Fe ...

) were difficult to implement on mobile devices, due mostly to issues of

power consumption Electric energy consumption is energy consumption in the form of electrical energy. About a fifth of global energy is consumed as electricity: for residential, industrial, commercial, transportation and other purposes. The global electricity con ...

. ATSC, used only by the

and its neighbors, also has difficulty even with fixed reception due to multipath, and mobile ATSC-M/H (which is

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

from individual

TV station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's ...

s) was not finalized until 2008. In addition, the transmission need not convey as high a resolution as would be needed for a larger display. MediaFLO streams are only 200-250 kbit/s, which would be insufficient for a larger screen size. In the now defunct United States implementation, FLO was transmitted by a network of high-power broadcast

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

s operating at

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would ha ...

s as high as 50 kilowatts. This allowed for a coverage area of a transmitter to be as large as .IEEE Transactions On Broadcasting, Vol. 53, No. 1, March 2007, http://www.qualcomm.com/common/documents/articles/FLO_physical_layer_IEEE.pdf The activation of many of these transmitters were delayed due to the official end of analog TV broadcasting on channel 55 being delayed. Immediately following the transition, the FLO network was expanded to several new markets, and coverage was enhanced in some existing ones. The transmission was an encrypted

OFDM In telecommunications, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a type of digital transmission used in digital modulation for encoding digital (binary) data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for ...

set of QAM signals sent on a 5.55 MHz channel from 716-722 MHz (former UHF TV channel 55). The band was

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

ed-off by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) and known as the "Lower 700 MHz Block D".http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=60 FCC Auction 60 Qualcomm also bought, in a later auction, the use of former analog UHF TV channel 56 (722-728 MHz) in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco for additional services. However, this is owned by Manifest Wireless (a subsidiary of

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

's Frontier Wireless) in most other

media market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television station, television and radio broadcasting, ra ...

s, where ATSC-M/H signals were

on air On air or On Air may refer to: Music *On Air (The Yardbirds album), ''On Air'' (The Yardbirds album), 1991 *On Air (Alan Parsons album), ''On Air'' (Alan Parsons album), 1996 *On Air (John Fahey album), ''On Air'' (John Fahey album), 2004 *On Air ...

. All of the transmitters sent the same signal and used the same frequency, forming a

single-frequency network A single-frequency network or SFN is a broadcast network where several transmitters simultaneously send the same signal over the same frequency channel. Analog AM and FM radio broadcast networks as well as digital broadcast networks can operat ...

. This allowed the mobile to decode the signal from more than one transmitter in the same way that it might if it was a multipath-delayed version from the same transmitter. All stations used

callsign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assi ...

WPZA237, but each has an identifier indicating its group and number. For example, one station in the

metro Atlanta Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixt ...

was ATL-006, while another was ATL-014. Some other operational parameters of MediaFLO are as follows: All of the bearer (data) traffic occurred within an MLC using the 3500 non-overhead subcarriers. The protocol also contemplates a certain amount of inter-symbol time spacing, to allow for the effects of multi-path transmission and reception. There is a window time T_WGI included both before and after each OFDM symbol. However, since this window is shared between each two consecutive symbols, T_S = T_U + T_WGI + T_FGI. For

conditional access Conditional access (CA) is a term commonly used in relation to software and to digital television systems. Conditional access is an evaluation to ensure the person who is seeking access to content is authorized to access the content. Access is man ...

, Verizon Wireless utilized its

EVDO Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO, EVDO, etc.) is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access. EV-DO is an evolution of the CDMA2000 ( IS-2000) standard which ...

network to authenticate mobile handsets and provide the decryption keys necessary to decode the programming. Because of this, users who block data use to prevent unauthorized charge were also blocked from viewing any channels, including the preview channel.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

FLO TV home page

RabbitEars.Info MediaFLO Transmitter List
Mobile television Qualcomm Products and services discontinued in 2011 2011 disestablishments in the United States