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FLO Forum attacks EC mobile stance

February 13, 2008

From David Del Valle in Barcelona

The European Commission’s decision to bet on the DVB-H standard to for Europe has been fiercely criticised by the Qualcomm-sponsored FLO Forum at the MWC in Barcelona which has demanded a neutral position from European authorities in the emerging mobile TV business.

“It is still very premature having a regulator selected a standard. The EC’s decision is not mandatory and we hope MediaFLO is also included in the list of recommended standards”, said Kamil Grajski, President of the FLO Forum, an organisation formed by operators, content provides and vendors aimed at promoting the use of MediaFLO standard.

Representatives from Irdeto, Nagravision, NDS and Mier Comunicaciones, among others, also called for “market neutrality” so that all technology standards (DVB-H, MediaFLO, the Korean T-DMB, the Chinese CMMB the Japanese ISDB-T, TD-CDMA) may co-exist in the International mobile TV landscape.

Categories: Articles, Mobile, Mobile TV, Regulation