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Qualcomm/BSkyB
Two trials conducted by Qualcomm and BSkyB in laboratory and ‘live’ settings in and around Cambridge and Manchester have confirmed the performance claims made of the MediaFLO mobile broadcast technology. The trial featured 11 channels from BSkyB delivered to non-commercial devices from Qualcomm. Factors such as total throughput, single frequency network (SFN), network acquisition, channel switching time, layered modulation and video codec performance were all evaluated.
The trial aimed to test various technical performance claims for the MediaFLO system and perform comparative analysis against DVB-H. To this end all comparative laboratory measurements were based on common test equipment for MediaFLO and DVB-H, while drive test routes for DVB-H and MediaFLO were nominally the same. The result was a thorough technical analysis of FLO technology’s capabilities, confirming pervious performance claims about the MediaFLO system.
From a technical perspective the trial showed that the FLO physical layer performs as well as or better than previously claimed, with laboratory and field performance results in substantial agreement. Comparatively, whether in the laboratory or in the field, the DVB-H physical layer underperformed the FLO physical layer by around 4.5dB.
Results At A Glance:
• MediaFLO physical layer field performance was around 4.5 dB overall better for non-layered modes with comparable bit per second per hertz capacity
• dB advantage could allow a MediaFLO network to either cover twice the geographical area per transmitter when applying modes of equal capacity - resulting in a substantial reduction in network expense - or provide double the service offering on a channel count basis for a constant cell size with the same spectrum and transmitter deployment
• Testing demonstrated that MediaFLO is capable of supporting 20 channels of QVGA video and stereo audio in a single 5MHz spectrum allocation. This can be scaled for an 8MHz UHF channel. This performance represents a 20 per cent increase in channels relative to prior performance claims of 20 video channels per 6 MHz channel
Details: www.qualcomm.com
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