YA Cellevision Standard - FLO
November 29th, 2005 | by amarfresh |We’ve heard of DVB-H and DMB, now we have FLO (Forward Link-Only). Recently ratified by Qualcomm, the technology should enable the delivery of multiple, multimedia streams over the standard TV channel allocation bandwidths.
Qualcomm Inc. is pushing the FLO technology as an alternative way to deliver content to mobile devices from mutually incompatible formats in the emerging mobile TV market. The others include DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcast) based on the Eureka 147 digital radio broadcasting standard and DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld), a mobile version of terrestrial digital TV standard.
Since Qualcomm is involved I suspect Verizon is on board. Although, shouldn’t they already be able to stream live video over EV-DO?
This is all vapor to me. I for one don’t care what the standard(s) is(are). I know that in Korea and Japan this is already happening using DVB-H. I like the idea of separating the TV network from the phone/data network. That seems to be the most practical solution, however it probably is one not as easily monetized by the cellcos. Don’t we currently have “free” radio and television signals in the air? Can’t we leverage these existing systems as opposed to packetising the media? Nokia has had phone cabaple of a receiving FM radio in their product line for quite some time. Why not a TV receiver? Seems plausible, no?
I’m not an engineer, and I’m sure there are a great many reasons for not building a TV receiver into cell phones. Multiple standards does not a standard make. Lets just hope the cellcos choose their “standard” with the people (as opposed to their pockets) in mind.