Qualcomm talking to AT&T, other carriers over MediaFLO spectrum sale?
Seems Qualcomm wasn't kidding when it said selling off MediaFLO's spectrum was a possibility now that it's cutting off direct-to-consumer mobile TV services. BusinessWeek is reporting that the company has sat down recently with "several carriers" -- though only AT&T is being called out by name -- presumably with the goal of fleshing out just how much dinero it could land for offing the spectrum MediaFLO uses to deliver programming. Qualcomm paid close to $700 million for the spectrum over the course of the last decade, and it lies in the 700MHz block -- a block both AT&T and Verizon will be using extensively as they build out their next-gen networks -- so it stands to reason they'd both love to buy in, likely at a healthy premium over what Qualcomm originally paid.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: att, businessweek, carriers, flo tv, healthy-premium, mediaflo, other-carriers, services, spectrum, spectrum-over
Japan chooses ISDB-Tmm over MediaFLO for new mobile TV network, KDDI pouts
Well, that wasn't much of a delay at all! Japanese regulators have apparently gone ahead and selected NTT DoCoMo's proposal for Japan's next-gen mobile TV network scheduled to go live in 2012 -- ISDB-Tmm, an evolution of the country's existing one-seg technology -- over the MediaFLO-based solution floated by competitor KDDI. Considering that KDDI is tied up in CDMA / EV-DO, it's little wonder they were pushing MediaFLO, a product of CDMA patron saint Qualcomm -- but it's a moot point now that the license is going to DoCoMo's broadcasting consortium
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: engadget-mobile, isdb-tmm, japan, kddi, license, media, mediaflo, mobile, mobile tv, ntt-docomo, nttdocomo, one seg, oneseg, patron, proposal
Samsung Flight II and Eternity II official for AT&T
At AT&T, it's not just about the Xperia X10 today -- at least, not if Samsung has anything to say about it. Sammy's introduced a pair of sequels in the last few hours, the Flight II (pictured left) and the Eternity II (pictured right), both previously-rumored devices that re-up the company's media-centric dumbphone strategy both with and without physical QWERTY keyboards.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: att, available-right, Eternity, flight ii, flo, flotv, mediaflo, smart-gestures
FLO TV losing money, Qualcomm looking for an out?
So it seems that founding and operating a broadcast mobile TV business is no mean feat: as mocoNews points out, there is spectrum to be purchased and transmission towers to be networked -- all before you can sell electronics manufacturers on carrying your chipset in their devices. Unfortunately for Qualcomm , it looks like FLO TV has been something less than profitable, a reality that CEO Paul Jacobs owned up to in the company's Q3 conference call.
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: business, conference, entry, jacobs, mediaflo, personal, points, radio, satellite, something-less, television, towers, transmission
Sharp keeps going with the Sidekick look, intros FX for AT&T
Sharp, you see, hasn't had much luck with its North American phone efforts as of late -- they've made almost all of the now-dead Sidekick series, and the Kin ... well, you know how that ended up working out
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: att, entry, guys-the-very, mediaflo, mobiletv, phone-efforts, quickfire, seriously-wish, sharp, sharp fx, sidekick, the-meantime
LG Vu Plus coming to AT&T on June 6 for $150
So that Vu Plus we'd tipped for a June 6 release has just gone official, and needless to say, it's not your daddy's Vu . The most notable change is the addition of a landscape slider QWERTY keyboard, but one of the Vu's hallmark's -- support for AT&T's FLO-based Mobile TV service -- carries over for $9.99 a month with a free 7-day trial subscription. It's got a 3-inch capacitive touchscreen, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a 3 megapixel autofocus cam with video recording, AT&T Video Share compatibility, and microSD expansion if the phone's internal 50MB just aren't cutting it.
Categories: Mobile Phone, Other Tags: att, breaking-news, breakingnews, flotv, hallmark, keyboard, mediaflo, most-notable, phone, video, vu plus, vuplus