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Qualcomm has been under almost constant fire from an array of problems that include it battle of license fees with its largest customer, Nokia, to unfair pricing claims from rival Texas Instruments, to Sprint’s choice of WiMax for its next-generation network.
The big wireless chip company got a win. Verizon will launch a service with several channels that will allow its wireless users to see entire TV shows from networks like CBS, Viacom’s MTC, News Corp’s Fox, and GE’s NBC unit. The system to deliver the high-resolution video will be Qualcomm’s MediaFLO platform. Samsung and LG already make phones that work on the system.
Qualcomm has spent $800 million building out MediaFLO across the US, so it could use a customer. If the Verizon product is a hit with consumers, it would help validate the Qualcomm vision of having a system that delivers high-quality video to handsets.
A recent IDC research survey found that mobile entertainment was not popular amoung US consumers and that price was one of the barriers.
The Verizon deal is nice for Qualcomm, if consumers want it.
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