Cell Geek

Chip manufacturer Qualcomm has announced that they will be suspending
consumer sales of Media Flo. The service allows customer to watch live
TV from mobile devices. Qualcomm does see continued interest in the
Media Flo service, and the spectrum that it operates on, but is still
intending on discontinuing the service. Qualcomm has agreed to continue
support for existing Media Flo devices until Sping of 2011. Should the
service close early Qualcomm intends to issue appropriate refunds.

Qualcomm and Rentrack corporation are teaming up to bring enhancements to Qualcomm's Flo TV. The enhancement will be a system that is capable of measuring mobile TV viewership. The metrics data retrieved from this will allow network operators, advertisers, and content producers a real life guage to judge the performance of their offerings. Currently its been discovered the average user watches mobile tv for 30 minutes at a time. Typically the TV is used between 1 and 2pm, and the highest viewership is noted when there is a special event that is occuring.

MediaFLO is becoming more and more accepted in the market place.  Mobile video is being seen as one of the next killer application for cellular phones, and as such Qualcomm has a huge division of the company dedicated to expanding its foot print.  Currently MediaFLO technology is employed in 62 Markets.  February 2009 ushers in a new wave of renewed hope for Qualcomm as the migration to digital broadcast television will free up more airspace for their transmission.  This transition will add an additional 46 markets to the services foot print.  Qualcomm has also been ever vigilant waiting for opportunities to add new and exciting content to their network; Their newest project is creating temporary channels that can revolve around an event.  MediaFLO is also exploring the addition of original content to the network instead of just relying on content aggregators for all their programming needs.

Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC have been added to MediaFlo's channel line up. MediaFlo will be offering simulcast broadcasting to fit inline with the coverage on their major cable and satelite networks. MediaFlo is available to Verizon and At&t subscribers. Qualcomm believes the move will allow their subscribers "up-to-the-minute financial news". MediaFlo has been expanding their services to more popular stations like MTV, CBS Mobile, Fox Mobile, and NBC.

{engadget}
{phonescoop}
{Qualcomm}