MediaFLO to Ramp Up Programming with New Spectrum
Mobile-Content Provider Spent $554.6M on Channel-56 Spectrum in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco Regions in FCC Auction
By Glen Dickson -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/4/2008 10:10:00 AM MT
Qualcomm said it will use the wireless spectrum it acquired in the Federal Communications Commission’s recent 700-megahertz auction to expand the programming offered by MediaFLO, the live mobile-TV service it currently operates on UHF broadcast spectrum in 58 markets across the country.
Qualcomm spent $554.6 million to gain channel-56 spectrum in the Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco regions, complementing the channel-55 spectrum it already owns there and giving it a total footprint of 12 MHz across much of the East and West coasts.
According to MediaFLO USA president Gina Lombardi, the company plans to work with Verizon Wireless, which has been marketing MediaFLO for just over one year, and AT&T, which will launch the mobile-TV service next month, to roll out second-generation mobile handsets that will be able to tune into both channels simultaneously and receive up to 40 streams of live video in total.
That will have to wait, of course, until broadcasters complete the digital-television transition next February and clear the channel-56 spectrum, although MediaFLO has already been successful in many markets in reaching financial agreements with stations to vacate their channel-55 spectrum early, with the approval of the FCC.
MediaFLO currently offers only 10 programming streams, or “channels”, on the 6 MHz of spectrum it currently occupies. Eight are programmed by CBS, ESPN, Fox, MTV Networks and NBC Universal, and the carrier programs two itself.
Verizon Wireless just launched new channels ESPN Radio and the bilingual MTV Tr3s on its two channels, while AT&T plans to offer a movie channel from Sony, with its 10th channel to be determined.
But Lombardi said the efficiency of MediaFLO's transmission system means that 6 MHz of spectrum could actually support up to 20 live video channels, along with 10 audio channels and various non-real-time clips, and that MediaFLO plans to use the new channel-56 spectrum to provide several customized packages of programming.
“We could make our current spectrum look like a good 30 or 40 channels, counting the audio services and datacasting,” she added. “So now, when you double that, it gives us a whole new capability to focus on other things and different, segmented packages, such as a family package or a sports package.”
Lombardi said that while MediaFLO has focused on national programming services to date, it is still interested in adding local news and sports content to the service. She is closely watching the efforts by local broadcasters to create their own mobile-TV system using the digital-TV spectrum, which, she added, could provide a complementary delivery path to MediaFLO’s spectrum if there were mobile phones with receivers that could tune to both services.
That would be cost-effective for MediaFLO, as it currently delivers programming via satellite to local UHF transmitters in the markets it serves. But Lombardi said the company is also exploring ways it could deliver local broadcast content using its own spectrum, either by installing local headends or backhauling content via fiber to its San Diego uplink center.
“We do believe we’ll be working with [local broadcasters] in the long term,” she added.
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