CTIA: Qualcomm TV debuts

LAS VEGAS--Though Qualcomm billed it merely as a demo, a live Forward Link Only (FLO) network blanketing Las Vegas was in full operation in all but name only, powering concept TV phones and multimedia devices both in and outside of CTIA’s Wireless 2006 conference this week.

At least one FLO broadcasting tower was transmitting in Las Vegas, delivering nine channels of streaming video at 15 frames per second. Consequently, the QVGA screens of prototype phones at Qualcomm, Samsung, LG Electronics and other vendor’s booths were a blur of activity, far overshadowing the circuit board mounted demo boxes Digital Broadcast Video-Handheld (DVB-H) vendors were using to demo their rival technology. While DVB-H definitely was out in force with the Digital TV Forum announcing 11 new members (including Intel and Microsoft) to its initial five-company roster and U.S. operator Modeo unveiled its first DVB-H phone built by HTC. But without a live network transmitting to the show floor, DVB-H’s thunder was drowned out by the sheer onslaught of live FLO demos from dozens of booths across the conference center.

And if two technologies bridling for attention weren’t enough, IPWireless had its new TDtv technology on display. Without its chipsets in any handsets, IPWireless had to send its Time Division-CDMA signal to a Wi-Fi access point which then distributed the TV feeds to Wi-Fi enabled PDAs. The picture quality on the devices was as good the FLO demos, but the Wi-Fi link added some additional latency to the network.

Both Qualcomm and Modeo are planning to launch a full market trial of the technology later this year and start commercial rollouts in 2007.