Last week QUALCOMM said it signed a non-binding letter of intent to conduct technical trials of its MediaFLO technology in the U.K. The technical trials are expected to begin this summer and will feature 10 channels of BSkyB content on a small number of non-commercial devices provided by QUALCOMM.
Peggy Johnson, QUALCOMM's president of Internet Service and MediaFLO Technologies said, "As one of Europe's largest, most successful and best-known multichannel television platform operators, BSkyB is the ideal company to team up with QUALCOMM on our first MediaFLO trial in Europe. We expect this trial to demonstrate a strong validation of the value QUALCOMM believes FLO technology offers both in Europe and other markets around the world."
Johnson said that MediaFLO's openness, coverage advantages, low power consumption and cost set it apart from competing technologies.
Stephen Nuttall, BSkyB's group director of business development said, "BSkyB is committed to offering customers flexible ways to enjoy our services. We have led the way in the delivery of mobile TV over existing platforms and we look forward to working with QUALCOMM in this technical trial to evaluate the potential of MediaFLO."
In addition to the technical trials in the U.K., QUALCOMM's U.S. subsidiary, MediaFLO USA, is working with Verizon Wireless to deploy wireless multimedia services in the United States. QUALCOMM and KDDI formed a joint venture to explore deployment of MediaFLO services in Japan.
