Our take...
Qualcomm hasn't yet specified what it plans to do with the spectrum. The company has been trying introduce its mobile TV technology MediaFLO in Europe for the past couple of years without any success because of a hostile regulatory environment. Qualcomm's hope for the emergence of MediaFLO in Europe was further damaged when the European Commission has made DVB-H the official European mobile TV standard in March 2008. The L-Band auction in the UK is a unique opportunity for Qualcomm to go forward with its mobile TV plans in Europe. Already the mobile TV technology has been sold to the two largest mobile operators in the US: AT&T and Verizon. BSkyB has trialled MediaFLO with Qualcomm on two occasions in Manchester and in Cambridge during 2006. BSkyB is currently struggling to acquire new mobile TV subscribers over the 3G networks although the company has signed content deals with three of the five local mobile operators. By combining premium content from BSkyB and a high quality mobile TV delivery platform such as MediaFLO, mobile subscribers are more likely to accept to pay for the mobile TV service.

Spectrum acquisition is only the first step. There are three more important tasks which Qualcomm must address before launching:

• Find attractive handsets capable of receiving MediaFLO broadcasts over the L-Band
• Build up a channel line-up through various content partnerships (e.g. BSkyB, BBC, ITV)
• Partner with mobile operators in order to sell and market the service

In the UK, there has been no mobile broadcast TV platform since the close of BT Movio last January. However, wireless technology specialist NextWave Wireless is about to launch a mobile TV trial in London for 6 months starting this summer with mobile operators T-Mobile and Orange. As opposed to MediaFLO, the technology to be used in this trial, called Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS), enables mobile operators to provide mobile broadcast services over existing 3G networks.