Qualcomm has reported the successful completion of its mobile TV trial with UK broadcaster BSkyB.

The technical trial, conducted over two months in Cambridge, featured 11 channels from the BSkyB content menu delivered to test devices running Qualcomm’s MediaFLO system in both laboratory and mixed field test environments. 

MediaFLO is one of a number of technical approaches being used by chip suppliers and broadcaster for the provision of future mobile TV services.

A number of European operators are looking at DVB-H as a system platform for mobile TV services. BT has already introduced its Movio system based on DAB-IP digital broadcast technology.    

According to Robin Crossley, strategy adviser, technology for BSkyB: “This was a thorough test of the technology’s capabilities, yielding encouraging results.”

The Cambridge test demonstrated that MediaFLO is capable of supporting 20 channels of QVGA video and stereo audio in a single 5MHz spectrum allocation.

The test ran 25 frame/s video operating at an average of 240kbit/s throughput per video/audio channel. Channels were acquired in an average of 2 seconds.

Measurements of channel switching time yielded an average physical layer channel change time of <1.5 second and an average video to video channel change time of 2.1 seconds.

“Completion of our trial with BSkyB in Cambridge is a major milestone in the development and deployment of the MediaFLO system, and we’re quite proud of the results realized in our testing,” said Peggy Johnson, president for QUALCOMM MediaFLO Technologies and QUALCOMM Internet Services.  

The trial also involved infrastructure provider Arqiva.