UPDATED: Another Attempt at FLO TV on the Go

December 2nd, 2009 by Eric

FLO TV
Credit: Engadget

A recent trip to Best Buy during Black Friday yielding a lot of window shopping for me; there just didn’t seem to be any must-have gadgets this.

One of the gadgets that I noticed was the FLO TV Personal Television.

FLO TV Personal Television

I guess Qualcomm needed to maximize its attempts at trying to make Mobile TV fly in more ways than just on the handset. Aside from the larger screen, I can’t imagine why someone would want to buy this? The device cost at $250 USD is not bad, but the $9+ subscription that you need to pay just doesn’t add up. While this Kindle-like device makes sense on paper, the reality is that the medium (video) doesn’t quite match the device/usage/pricing model. I’m not sure if we’ll see the small personal TVs with the silver antennae come back, with a digital decoder inside, but TV over mobile networks just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Force feeding signals though an already constrained bit pipe is really hard. Besides, I’m sure Hulu and Netflix could figure out a better model for mobile delivery, especially since they already have lots of customers.

UPDATE: OK, in doing more homework about MediaFLO, my original comments were off. Maybe I have more issue with the pricing model of placeshifting and timeshifting in compared to what the iTunes store has already built. But I understand the Qualcomm needs to grow this market segment and make portable TV fresh again. I guess sometimes it’s just easier to roll out your own ecosystem since convincing device manufacturers to put more and more antennae and systems embedded just get really challenging for integration.

  • jeffemundo
    "but TV over mobile networks just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Force feeding signals though an already constrained bit pipe is really hard"

    Uh, that's not what FLO is homie. It's actually not on the mobile network and that's why it's a good thing/necessary. At some point, all that data is not going to be able to be supported, and you'll need to move a lot of it off. The best candidates are things like TV, which are forward link only. Forward Link Only, hey, that'd make a good acronym, eh... FLO.
  • mobileslate
    Technically, it's still a mobile network, even though it might not be the same channels: http://www.mediaflo.com/mediaflo/index.html
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