MediaFLO

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MediaFLO is Qualcomm's new technology to broadcast data to portable devices such as cell phones and PDAs. Broadcast data will include audio and video streams, individual video and audio "clips", as well as information such as stock market quotes, sports scores, and weather reports.^[1] The "F-L-O" in MediaFLO stands for Forward Link Only ^[2], meaning that the data transmission path is one-way, from the tower to the device. The MediaFLO system transmits data on a frequency separate from the frequencies used by current cellular networks. In the United States, the MediaFLO system will use frequency spectrum at approximately 700Mhz, which was previously allocated to UHF TV Channel 55.^[3] It is a competitor to the Korean T-DMB standard and the European DVB-H standard. Devices including MediaFLO have been introduced at least by LG and Samsung at CES 2006 in Las Vegas. No public 'beta' testing phase has begun anywhere to date. On December 1st, 2005 Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm announced partnership for the launch of the MediaFLO network.^[4]. A similar announcement was made by Cingular in February 2007.^[5] Verizon Wireless expects to deploy MediaFLO in half of their 1xEV-DO markets in the United States in 2006, while Cingular plans to start using the technology in late 2007.