LG, Samsung Get Up in Qualcomm’s Face on Mobile TV

Oh, snap: Qualcomm Inc. better take notice ‘cuz LG Electronics  and Samsung are in the house – the same house – to take on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO in the mobile TV space.

Should the big Q care, considering it’s got mobile TV contracts sewn up with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.? In a word: perhaps. Because LG and Samsung have fish to fry other than the service providers. They’re aiming to cut deals directly with broadcasters, competing head to head with cellcos, cable companies and others for not only mobile DTV, but perhaps DTV in general.

While the two device makers already have developed their own mobile TV technologies, they said that they would now be teaming to pool their resources to support the U.S.’s Advanced Television Systems Committee in its quest to develop a mobile TV standard to "enable broadcasters to deliver television content and data to mobile and handheld devices via their DTV broadcast signal."

Those broadcasters are represented, along with most of the top U.S. content providers, by something called the Open Mobile Video Coalition, focused on mobile television. Among the stakeholders are TV station owners and brands with a vested interest in being able to directly deliver their wares to mobile consumers – or consumers in general – without being beholden to a service provider.

The OMVC will soon choose a mobile DTV standard to support, and the top existing contenders are MediaFLO and DVB-H. But by developing a DTV standard that makes use of the technology behind the Feb. 17, 2009 move to digital television, LG and Samsung have the potential to allow OMVC members to tap not only mobile consumers but to eventually “go direct” to other devices in the digital home – devices, for instance, that might be developed by Samsung, one of the world’s top television makers. The result? Millions and millions and millions of potential subscribers.

So yes, perhaps Qualcomm should pay attention.

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