Satellite Backbones for Mobile TV

From Daily Wireless:

"Intelsat today announced that it has signed a contract with MediaFLO USA, for capacity on the Intelsat Americas-8 (IA-8) satellite.

The MediaFLO USA network deployment will provide satellite bandwidth and connectivity for the MediaFLO USA transmitter sites for mobile television on Qualcomm's dedicated 700 Mhz band (on UHF channel 55). Anticipated content includes live, streaming video and audio, short-format content and IP data-casting. MediaFLO USA, is a wholly owned subsidiary of QUALCOMM.

Using Ku-band capacity, the newly operational IA-8 satellite delivers multimedia audio or video content to mobile devices while reducing traffic on wireless carrier's networks. Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless expect to launch mobile TV services over the MediaFLO network in approximately half of the markets already covered by Verizons' EV-DO-based broadband network. Verizon Wireless says they'll offer MediaFLO this year, although that may be problematic in some areas where UHF television stations occupy the channel 55 slot (until 2009).

Cellular Media Networks

	DVB-H	MediaFLO	ISDB-T	DMB
Standard	Open	Qualcomm	Open	Open
Regions	U.S., Europe, parts of Asia	U.S.	Japan	Korea
Air Interface	OFDM	OFDM	OFDM	OFDM
Service Availability	2006	2006/2007	Early 2006	Today
Handset Availability	Today	2006/2007	2006	Today
Source: Texas Instruments

Competitor Modeo is using the DVB-H standard in the 1.7 GHz band. It's being developed by Crown Castle Mobile Media, which announced that it will begin rolling out DVB-H services in the top 30 markets across the USA this year.

Crown Castle, owns 5 MHz of national spectrum in the L band (1670-1675 MHz) and owns, operates and manages over 10,600 wireless communication sites in the U.S.. It will feature about 10 video channels and at least 24 audio channels that can be received by cellphones, PDAs and other portable devices.

Crown Castle Mobile Media will use AMC-9, a satellite at 83° west, for the backbone and deliver Windows Media content to a variety of mobile devices. The DVB-H enabled Nokia N92 has DVB-H built in. Nokia likes mobile television delivered via the DVB-H standard."