MediaFLO
Encyclopedia
MediaFLO is a technology developed by Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...

 for transmitting audio, video and data to portable devices such as mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

s and personal televisions, used for mobile television. In the United States, the service powered by this technology is branded as FLO TV.

Broadcast
Broadcast
Broadcast or Broadcasting may refer to:* Broadcasting, the transmission of audio and video signals* Broadcast, an individual television program or radio program* Broadcast , an English electronic music band...

 data transmitted via MediaFLO includes live, real time audio and video streams, as well as scheduled video and audio clips and shows. The technology can also carry Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

 datacast application data, such as stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...

 quotes, sports scores, and weather reports
Weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since the nineteenth century...

.

In October 2010, Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...

 announced it was suspending new sales of the service to consumers. In December 2010, AT&T announced that it will purchase Qualcomm's FCC licenses in the 700 MHz band. FLO TV discontinued service on March 27, 2011.

Overview

The "FLO" in MediaFLO stands for Forward Link Only, meaning that the data transmission path is one way, from the tower to the device. The MediaFLO system transmits data on a frequency separate from the frequencies used by current mobile telephone networks. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the MediaFLO system used frequency spectrum 716-722 MHz, which had previously been allocated to UHF TV channel 55
Channel 55
Channel 55 refers to several television stations. This frequency is also in use by MediaFLO, a US system developed by Qualcomm to send video and media to mobile devices:...

.

FLO has been standardized within ETSI as TS 102 589, and has components standardized within the Telecommunications Industry Association
Telecommunications Industry Association
The Telecommunications Industry Association is accredited by the American National Standards Institute to develop voluntary, consensus-based industry standards for a wide variety of ICT products, and currently represents nearly 400 companies...

 (TIA 1099, 1102, 1103, 1104, 1120, 1130, 1132, 1146 and 1178.)

MediaFLO is a competitor to the Korean T-DMB, the Japanese 1seg
1seg
is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. Service began experimentally during 2005 and commercially on April 1, 2006. In Brazil, the broadcast started in late 2007 in just a few cities, with a slight difference from...

 and the European DVB-H
DVB-H
DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website...

 standards.

Qualcomm is also conducting MediaFLO technical trials internationally, with the intention of forming partnerships with existing multi-channel content provider
Multichannel Video Programming Distributor
A multichannel video programming distributor is a service provider delivering video programming services, usually for a subscription fee...

s and service operators.

Technology

The protocol was developed because of the inherent spectral inefficiency of unicast
Unicast
right|200pxIn computer networking, unicast transmission is the sending of messages to a single network destination identified by a unique address.-Addressing methodologies:...

ing high-rate full-motion video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 to multiple subscribers. Additionally, traditional analog television
Analog television
Analog television is the analog transmission that involves the broadcasting of encoded analog audio and analog video signal: one in which the message conveyed by the broadcast signal is a function of deliberate variations in the amplitude and/or frequency of the signal...

 and over-the-air
Over-the-air
Over-the-air has several meanings, depending on context. *Generally, over-the-air is synonymous for wireless.*Specifically, over-the-air can have the following meanings or is used in the following contexts:...

 terrestrial digital television signals (DVB-T
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...

) were difficult to implement on mobile devices, due mostly to issues of power consumption. ATSC
ATSC
ATSC standards are a set of standards developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable, and satellite networks....

, used only by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and its neighbors, also has difficulty even with fixed reception due to multipath, and mobile ATSC-M/H
ATSC-M/H
ATSC-M/H is a standard in the USA for mobile digital TV, that allows TV broadcasts to be received by mobile devices.....

 (which is free-to-air
Free-to-air
Free-to-air describes television and radio services broadcast in clear form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription or one-off fee...

 from individual TV stations) was not finalized until 2008.

In addition, the transmission need not convey as high a resolution as would be needed for a larger display. MediaFLO streams are only 200-250 kbit/s, which would be insufficient for a larger screen size.

In the current United States implementation, FLO is transmitted by a network of high-power broadcast transmitter
Transmitter
In electronics and telecommunications a transmitter or radio transmitter is an electronic device which, with the aid of an antenna, produces radio waves. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the antenna. When excited by this alternating...

s operating at effective radiated power
Effective radiated power
In radio telecommunications, effective radiated power or equivalent radiated power is a standardized theoretical measurement of radio frequency energy using the SI unit watts, and is determined by subtracting system losses and adding system gains...

s as high as 50 kilowatts. This allows for a coverage area of a transmitter to be as large as 30 to 40 km (18.6 to 24.9 mi). The activation of many of these transmitters were delayed due to the official end of analog TV broadcasting on channel 55 being delayed. Immediately following the transition, the FLO network was expanded to several new markets, and coverage was enhanced in some existing ones.

The transmission is an encrypted OFDM
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing is a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies. OFDM has developed into a popular scheme for wideband digital communication, whether wireless or over copper wires, used in applications such as digital television and audio...

 set of QAM
Quadrature amplitude modulation
Quadrature amplitude modulation is both an analog and a digital modulation scheme. It conveys two analog message signals, or two digital bit streams, by changing the amplitudes of two carrier waves, using the amplitude-shift keying digital modulation scheme or amplitude modulation analog...

 signals sent on a 5.55 MHz channel from 716-722 MHz (former UHF TV channel 55
Channel 55
Channel 55 refers to several television stations. This frequency is also in use by MediaFLO, a US system developed by Qualcomm to send video and media to mobile devices:...

). The band was auction
Spectrum auction
A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction format used, a spectrum auction can last from a single...

ed-off by the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) and known as the "Lower 700 MHz Block D". Qualcomm also bought, in a later auction, the use of former analog UHF TV channel 56 (722-728 MHz) in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco for additional services; however, this is owned by Manifest Wireless (a subsidiary of Dish Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...

's Frontier Wireless) in most other media market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...

s, where ATSC-M/H signals are on air
On Air
On Air is the second solo release by Alan Parsons following the split of The Alan Parsons Project, however the album's chief creative force was the Project's long-time guitarist, Ian Bairnson...

. All of the transmitters send the same signal and use the same frequency, forming a single-frequency network
Single-frequency network
A single-frequency network or SFN is a broadcast network where several transmitters simultaneously send the same signal over the same frequency channel.-Overview:...

. This allows the mobile to decode the signal from more than one transmitter in the same way that it might if it was a multipath-delayed version from the same transmitter. All stations use callsign WPZA237, but each has an identifier indicating its group and number. For example, one station in the metro Atlanta
Metro Atlanta
The Atlanta metropolitan area or metro Atlanta, officially designated by the US Census Bureau as the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the ninth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States...

 media market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...

 is ATL-006, while another is ATL-014.

Some other operational parameters of MediaFLO are as follows:
Parameter Value
Total number of QAM sub-carriers 4096
Number of guard sub-carriers 96
Number of pilot sub-carriers 500
Multicast Logical Channels (MLC) 1-7
Modulations used QPSK (4 symbol constellations), 16QAM (16 symbols)
Spacing between sub-carriers 1.355 kHz (5.55 MHz / 4096 sub-carriers)
Modulated symbol (chip) duration 0.18 μs (1/5.55 MHz)


All of the bearer (data) traffic occurs within an MLC using the 3500 non-overhead subcarriers. The protocol also contemplates a certain amount of inter-symbol time spacing, to allow for the effects of multi-path transmission and reception.
Parameter Value
Total OFDM symbol interval (TS) 833.33 μs
Bearer Data traffic (TU) 738.02 μs
Window interval (TWGI) 3.06 μs
Cyclic Prefix (TFGI) 92.25 μs


There is a window time TWGI included both before and after each OFDM symbol. However, since this window is shared between each two consecutive symbols, TS = TU + TWGI + TFGI.

USA: FLO TV

In the U.S., all FLO television providers offered a set of 14 basic channels:
  • 2.FLO (6 am to 10 pm) — Original made-for-mobile reports and concerts; added in early 2010
  • Adult Swim
    Adult Swim
    Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...

     (10 pm to 6 am)
  • ABC
    American Broadcasting Company
    The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

     Mobile
  • CBS Mobile — Containing a mixture of sports and other CBS content
  • CNBC
    CNBC
    CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...

  • Comedy Central
    Comedy Central
    Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

  • ESPN
    ESPN
    Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

     Mobile TV — Frequently simulcasting live sporting events from their family of networks
  • Fox Mobile
  • Fox News Channel
    Fox News Channel
    Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

  • MTV
    MTV
    MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

     Mobile
  • MSNBC
    MSNBC
    MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

  • NBC 2Go — A mix of MSNBC, NBC, CNBC, and Bravo networks http://www.flotv.com/channels.shtml
  • Disney Channel
    Disney Channel
    Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...

  • Nickelodeon


Adult Swim time-shares with 2.FLO, as it does on cable TV with Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....

.

Additionally, the "FLO Preview Channel" was a free-to-view
Free-to-view
Free-to-view is a term used for free of charge and encrypted audio and/or video contents transmission that do not require any form of continual subscription...

 barker channel
Barker channel
A barker channel is a form of electronic media known as digital signage. It is a TV channel that is entirely composed of sales promotion and advertising, usually marketing various features of the service carrying the channel...

, available without subscription.

For conditional access
Conditional access
Conditional Access is the protection of content by requiring certain criteria to be met before granting access to this content...

, Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....

 utilized its EVDO network to authenticate mobile handsets and provide the decryption keys necessary to decode the programming. Because of this, users who block data use to prevent unauthorized charge were also blocked from viewing any channels, including the preview channel.

There were 16 TV channels being broadcast for Verizon. The additional Verizon channels include:
  • MTV Tr3́s
  • TLC
    TLC (TV channel)
    TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...



There were 16 TV channels being broadcast for AT&T: The additional AT&T channels are:
  • CNN Live Mobile*
  • Crackle
    Crackle
    Crackle is a digital network and studio, featuring commercially supported streaming video content in Flash Video format. It is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and its content consists primarily of Sony's library of films and television shows...

     — showing a variety of movies*


The standalone FLO TV Personal Television and FLO TV Automotive products also included CNN Live Mobile and Crackle.

Trials

Some trials are underway in Japan, Hong Kong and Taïwan, with no commitment for a commercial phase. In France, Qualcomm is trying to convince TDF to choose MediaFLO technology.

Devices

Devices including MediaFLO were first introduced by LG
LG
LG may refer to:*LG Corp., a South Korean electronics and petrochemicals conglomerate*LG Electronics, an affiliate of the South Korean LG Group which produces electronic products* Lawrence Graham, a London headquartered firm of business lawyers...

 and Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

 at CES 2006 in Las Vegas. On December 1, 2005 Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is one of the largest mobile network operators in the United States. The network has 107.7 million subscribers as of 2011, making it the largest wireless service provider in America....

 and Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...

 announced partnership for the launch of the MediaFLO network, and Verizon launched the service commercially as part of its VCAST offering on March 1, 2007, marketing the MediaFLO-specific technology/service as "VCAST TV". A similar announcement was made by AT&T Mobility in February 2007. AT&T Mobility launched their MediaFLO service on May 4, 2008. The first non-phone TV-only devices were released in late 2009.

FLO TV was first offered on certain wireless phones offered by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless.

In November 2009 FLO TV introduced the FLO TV Personal Television mobile device (model PTV-350).

End of Service

On July 21, 2010, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs
Paul E. Jacobs
-Career:Paul E. Jacobs has been Chief Executive Officer of the company since July 2005, having previous to that date served as the Group President of Qualcomm Wireless and Internet Group from July 2001. Jacobs started with the company as an engineer in the wireless technology development group in...

 said the company planned to either sell its MediaFLO business or its spectrum, or to find a partner. The company had predicted the total cost to launch the service would be $800 million, including the $683 million the San Diego Union-Tribune says Qualcomm paid for the spectrum. At the time, the service covered as many as 68 million people, but many analysts confirmed that the project was losing money.

On October 5, 2010, Qualcomm signaled the end of the FloTV service by declaring that there would be no further sales of devices to consumers. Qualcomm indicated the service would be up and running through at least Spring 2011 but could be turned off at any point thereafter. The company said that the MediaFLO spectrum could be used for electronic magazines or newspapers, though such services could be offered alongside the existing broadcast channels. Qualcomm had even reached out to software developers for possible solutions.

On December 20, 2010, AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

 announced that it would purchase Qualcomm's FCC licenses in the 700 MHz band and that FLO TV service would be shut down on March 27, 2011. Qualcomm received $1.93 billion. Despite spending $132 million in the previous quarter on bolstering FLO TV, Qualcomm still made a profit on the sale, as it had originally paid $38 million for the former channel 55 and $558 million for the former channel 56.

See also

  • Mobile TV
    Mobile TV
    Mobile television usually means television watched on a small handheld device. It may be a pay TV service broadcast on mobile phone networks or received free-to-air via terrestrial television stations from either regular broadcast or a special mobile TV transmission format...

     a term for the category of techniques
  • DVB-H
    DVB-H
    DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website...

     (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld)
  • DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting)
  • DMB
    Digital Multimedia Broadcasting
    Digital Multimedia Broadcasting is a digital radio transmission technology developed in South Korea as part of the national IT project for sending multimedia such as TV, radio and datacasting to mobile devices such as mobile phones...

     (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting)
  • DAB
    Digital audio broadcasting
    Digital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....

     (Digital Audio Broadcasting)
  • DRM
    Digital Radio Mondiale
    Digital Radio Mondiale is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for AM broadcasting, particularly shortwave...

     (Digital Radio Mondiale)
  • 1seg
    1seg
    is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. Service began experimentally during 2005 and commercially on April 1, 2006. In Brazil, the broadcast started in late 2007 in just a few cities, with a slight difference from...

     (mobile TV system on ISDB-T)
  • ISDB-Tmm (Terrestrial mobile multi-media)
  • Electronic program guide
    Electronic program guide
    Electronic program guides and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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