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The Cell Phone—Now That's Entertainment
With music, games, and now video populating today's cell phones, who has time to talk?
Date Posted: May 11, 2006 12:00 AM
MEDIA FLO
MediaFLO is the invention of CDMA cell-phone pioneer Qualcomm.FLO stands for forward link only, which implies a broadcast or multicast mode. It resembles Modeo and DVB-H, with a similar distribution system (Fig. 2, again). And, MediaFLO uses a 6-MHz chunk of spectrum from 716 to 722 MHz (formerly UHF TV channel 55), recently acquired by Qualcomm. It's available nationwide.
MediaFLO's air interface, also OFDM, can support a very fast data rate because of the wider 6-MHz channel. Qualcomm states a maximum of about 2 bits/s/Hz up to 12 Mbits/s. As a result, MediaFLO can provide up to 20 video channels and 10 audio channels. Again, the bit stream is divided for flexibility to fit local situations. Compression is MPEG 4.
Like DVB-H, MediaFLO was designed with serious power efficiency for a maximum viewing time of several hours. Two or three transmitters about 50 km apart can cover an entire area. A 15-fps frame rate on a quarter-commonintermediate-format (QCIF) screen is the standard. But 30 fps on a QVGA screen also is possible. MediaFLO will work with cdma2000 networks owned by Sprint Nextel and Verizon using 1xRTT EV-DO. The FLO Forum (www. floforum.org), which supports MediaFLO, maintains the air interface specification.
Modeo and MediaFLO are expected to be the two competing mobile TV systems in the U.S. Look for greater availability of both in 2007. Subscription rates are expected to range from $10 to $15 per month. Cingular and T-Mobile will no doubt partner with Modeo and use DVB-H, while Verizon and Sprint Nextel will adopt MediaFLO, though the final arrangements are still under wraps.
DVB-H will dominate Europe. It's already operational in some countries. Japan has developed a digital system called integrated services digital broadcast-terrestrial (ISDB-T) that's expected to be operational this year. Korea uses a system called digital media broadcast (DMB), which is available now. Both are quite different from the U.S. systems.
Dozens of products already address this vast new market (see the table), with chips once again forming the heart of all designs. But most of these chips are special processors, and they need the right software to work.