sales of new devices,” says Qualcomm in a statement. “We anticipate we will maintain the network so that current direct to consumer subscribers will continue to receive FLO programming into Spring 2011.”

Flo TV made its big debut on Super Bowl Sunday this year when about 116 million viewers watched a commercial for the service. Yet it struggled to catch on with consumers. The service faced competition from rivals such as MobiTV and Sling Media and a group called theOpen Mobile Video Coalition that is trying to bring free TV content to mobile devices.

As smartphones became more popular and consumers took to streaming their favorite shows from their laptop to the TV, companies bet the next big thing would be anywhere, anytime TV. That means fans could watch Monday night football games the next day on their way to work or catch up on an episode of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show while waiting at the DMV.

But the idea ran into a few glitches. Americans have never really taken to mobile TV with gusto. Analysts estimate just about one percent of mobile users in the U.S. watch mobile TV.

Qualcomm tried to change consumer habits by offering Flo–which stands for Forward Link Only–both on cellphones through carriers and as independent monthly service that would be available through dedicated devices.

Flo, they hoped, would triumph because of its technology. The service takes standard video signals and re-formats them for the mobile platform. Flo’s network operations center transcodes and compresses broadcast content into a single package that is sent to transmitters using satellite, microwave or optical fiber. The transmitters then send it to receiving devices over the 700-MHz spectrum.

And because it’s a push technology with one-way data transmission, from the tower to the device, it doesn’t overload the network. Video through Flo TV is relatively smooth and doesn’t stutter.

But consumers balked at the price of the service. A personal TV that runs Flo costs $250 and includes just six month of service. Users have to pay a monthly fee to keep it going. Subscription fees for Flo TV on cellphones from carriers such as AT&T ranged from $10 to $20 a month.

Despite waning consumer demand for Flo TV, Qualcomm found “strong interest” from carriers in using Flo’s network or spectrum.

“We are seeing strong interest in using the FLO TV network or spectrum to capitalize on the growing imbalance between mobile data supply and demand, the growth of tablets, and consumer demand for high quality video and print content, and a richer user experience,” says Qualcomm.

Photo: Flo TV

Authors: Priya Ganapati

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