By Farihan Bahrin
Wednesday, March 07 2007 05:39 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,61994580,00.htm

Qualcomm is set to give its MediaFLO broadcasting technology a test run in Taiwan.

The telecommunications technology company announced Wednesday that it has teamed up with China Network Systems (CNS) and Taiwan Television (TTV) Enterprise to conduct a technical trial of the broadcasting technology in Taipei, Taiwan's capital city.

Engineered for the mobile environment, MediaFLO is one of several technologies competing to become a global standard for delivering broadcast TV to handsets. Other standards include DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) and DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting).

According to Qualcomm, the trial will allow its Taiwanese partners to closely evaluate real-world performance capabilities of MediaFLO as they explore opportunities to deliver multimedia services to mobile devices in Taiwan.

As part of the trial, Qualcomm said it will deliver over-the-air (OTA) four live channels of CNS content, and up to three live channels of TTV content.

According to Peggy Johnson, president of Qualcomm's Internet Services and MediaFLO Technologies, Taiwan makes a suitable testbed because of the country's high penetration of pay TV subscribers.

"Taiwan is one of the key markets in the region, with 84 percent pay TV penetration," Johnson said in a media release. "We expect this trial to provide a strong validation of the value Qualcomm believes MediaFLO technology offers, both in Asia and in other markets around the world."

Analysts, however, have expressed doubts over MediaFLO's potential to break into the market, particularly with DVB-H technology--another competing standard--generating much enthusiasm among players in the mobile industry. According to analysts at Frost & Sullivan, the DVB-handheld (DVB-H) market totaled US$60 million in 2006, and is expected to balloon to US$2.04 billion by 2010.

Industry analyst Informa Telecom & Media predicted that the Asia-Pacific market will lead in the adoption of mobile TV, with a projected 68.4 million mobile broadcast TV users by 2010, or nearly 55 percent of the world's total.