Qualcomm to use L-Band in UK within 2 years

MediaFlow could be coming to the UK before digital switchover

30 May 2008 19:05 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs has said that the L-Band spectrum buy in the UK earlier in the month was an offer that was "kinda hard to pass up".

Jacobs made the comments to Pocket-lint as he refused to be drawn into outlining what the company’s plans for the spectrum in the UK.

"We will try an make some decisions over the next year or so", said Jacobs. "We aren’t going to just sit on it for years and years. We have a set of technologies that can be deployed in that spectrum and there are other people interested in it. We haven’t said specifically what we are going to do with it, but 40Mhz for $17m is kinda hard to pass up."

Qualcomm has said that it plans to use the spectrum to trial and test technologies such as its MediaFLO TV offering, currently live on Verizon and AT&T in the US.

The mobile television format works against the EU “Recommend” Mobile TV standard DVB-H and promises live television over the air.

In the US Qualcomm has said that viewing figures suggest that people are watching mobile TV considerably longer than it was expected with users opting to have it on in the background rather than focusing on watching it solely.

"I have it on in the background and check in on the news every so often", Jacobs told us in an interview.