Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Apr. 13, 2010

Qualcomm’s FLO TV subsidiary said today that it plans to expand its mobile TV offering later this year with the inclusion of interactive capabilities, pay-per-day and event passes, and a time-shifting viewing option.

The company said its new interactive feature will allow television viewers to interact with programming and advertising, allowing customers to click for more information about a show or click to buy a specific advertised product.

However, there was no word from Qualcomm as to how the actual purchasing of a product would be handled, least not yet.

The other updates include the pay-per-day passes that allow more pricing flexibility without having to commit to a contract.

FLO TV currently charges about $15 a month for its service. Television viewers also have the option of pre-paying $150 for one year of service or $200 for two years.

The event pass option will allow viewers to pay to watch single events with the new service.

The time shifting capability also allows viewers to store live shows on their FLO device and watch them at a later time.

This allows them to watch those stored shows outside of FLO’s coverage area, which Qualcomm recently mentioned covered more than 210 million potential customers in over 110 U.S. markets.

FLO TV currently offers full–length simulcast and time–shifted programming from ABC Mobile, Adult Swim Mobile, CBS, CNBC, CNN Mobile, Comedy Central, Discovery, Disney Channel, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, MTV and NBC 2Go.

Overall, Qualcomm says it has invested more than $1 billion building out the FLO network that it is marketing to wireless carriers as a way to offload high-bandwidth video traffic from their cellular networks.

Overall, both Verizon Wireless and AT&T offer mobile television services using the FLO network, though wireless industry analysts have noted that adoption has so far been muted with neither carrier announcing subscriber figures.

For its part, Qualcomm has recently moved beyond the traditional mobile market for the service launching portable devices as well as embedded solutions for cars and SUVs.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Qualcomm.