Qualcomm signs up BSkyB

EXACTLY AS predicted a month ago, BSkyB (best known for its satellite TV offering) has announced that it will be trialling Qualcomm's mobile TV solution - MediaFLO - in Europe during Q3 2006.

Although this announcement is no surprise to the INQ, it does go against conventional wisdom that rival technology, DVB-H, will out win in Europe combined with a bit of DMB-T (a TV version of digital radio) thrown in for good measure.

The announcement is also curious because the trail will take place in 8 MHz of PAL spectrum. So that's on a terrestrial TV signal. BSkyB hasn't told us how it got a test licence for that yet.

Anyway, the upshot is that BSkyB has 10 channels' worth of spectrum to play with. It hasn't made any announcements as to exactly what content will be tested. But you could guess that live Sky News would probably feature in there somewhere.

Qualcomm has said that it will be providing the test devices. The company wouldn't reveal exactly where these will come from besides the fact that they will appear to all intents and purposes to be mobile phone shaped.

Currently some six manufacturers have shown handsets capable of supporting MediaFLO and Samsung has shown a 3G handset version that would work in Europe.

Obviously Qualcomm can only say that it is working with BSkyB at present. However, BSkyB is well-known as being on the leading edge for the whole of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation environment.

So the deal bodes well for MediaFLO globally. Nokia - an ardent fan of DVB-H - isn't going to like this. µ

L'INQ
BSkyB may be planning mobile TV network