The Hindu Business Line : Go with the FLO

Dr Kamil Grajski is President of the FLO Forum, a body of over 90 global wireless industry leaders dedicated to the open standardisation of FLO (Forward Link-Only) technology for mobile broadcasting services. FLO enables mobile users to see and hear high quality video and audio and to browse and buy merchandise in real-time. Devices including MediaFLO (a Qualcomm technology) were first introduced by LG and Samsung in 2006 at Las Vegas. As of December 2007, Verizon Wireless was the only wireless provider selling equipment and subscriptions for Qualcomm’s MediaFLO service

As a platform, FLO is set for exponential growth, believes Dr Grajski. In an e-interaction with eWorld, he talks of the initiatives taken by the Forum to promote this technology. Excerpts:

Why is FLO considered to be a ‘next generation’ mobile technology?

FLO technology was designed from the ground-up for mobility, which gives it improved power efficiency, capacity, and coverage characteristics. Earlier generations of mobile broadcast technologies were a revision of corresponding terrestrial standards and hence they required compromises with respect to viewing experience, channel switching time, quality, coverage and other deployment issues.

FLO technology reduces network cost by dramatically decreasing the number of transmitters required for a given service area. For example, some mobile broadcast technologies allow only a single allocation unit per channel. In other words, if a channel is 250 kbps and an application needs only 5 kbps, it will still have to allocate 250 kbps, resulting in 245 kbps of wasted bandwidth. FLO, on the other hand, allows allocation of just the 5 kbps in this scenario. With FLO, four hours of streaming video is possible on a standard 850 mAh battery.

How dependent is FLO on spectrum availability? Will the shortage of spectrum (as in India today) act as a deterrent?

FLO is a mobile broadcast air interface technology that does not depend on the 2G or 3G wireless network. The delivery of multimedia content is technically achievable over today’s existing cellular networks: 2.5 G or 3G telephony, which are configured for one-to-one or “unicast” network connectivity and hence enable streaming of live content to mobile handsets. However, unicast has its limitations as the quality of the broadcast could be expected to deteriorate as the number of viewers increases.

In the Indian context, do you think this technology will reduce content delivery costs to mobile handsets?

As I mentioned earlier, due to its optimised design for mobility, FLO is a powerful economic force in deploying a low-cost bearer technology that would benefit service providers and end customers. We anticipate that the India market, too, will recognise and capitalise on the FLO opportunity.

On the commercial and regulatory environment for FLO deployment in India?

Commercially, India is ready for the deployment of FLO. From a regulatory perspective, key steps towards deploying mobile broadcast services in India include TRAI issuing a recommendation paper on issues relating to mobile TV. Key points that the FLO Forum fully supports include: technology neutrality (TRAI was of the opinion that the choice of broadcasting technology should be left to the service provider) and spectrum allocation (private mobile TV operators may be assigned at least 1 slot of 8 MHz each for mobile TV operation in UHF Band V from 585 MHz to 806 MHz.) The FLO Forum has consistently advocated that spectrum allocation policies should not preclude the choice of mobile TV (and related mobile broadcast) services. Yet, there is much to be accomplished from a regulatory point of view before mobile TV becomes viable for India.

How is the FLO Forum promoting itself in India?

The mission of the FLO Forum is three-fold. First, it intends to promote open standardisation of FLO technologies. The second mandate is endorsing capabilities for global FLO product certification and testing. Third, we intend promoting spectrum and regulatory frameworks that embrace technology neutrality and mobile broadcast-based service innovation. The India market is poised to embrace mobile broadcast and we anticipate that the FLO Forum will become more active as the market here evolves.

adith@thehindu.co.in

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