FloTV
 

hey does anyone have any experience with Flo TV? i was looking at getting one for the boat. Looks like a decent enough deal with a six month subscription. Any thoughts? Not a whole lot of channels yet but still a usable lineup.

http://www.buy.com/prod/flo-tv-perso...tml?adid=17070

http://www.flotv.com/

I am pretty sure they are using a digital UHF television signal so you are going to need to be pretty close (30 miles or so) to the broadcast signal source. For that reason you need to look at their coverage maps. I have a feeling a lot of lakes will be outside the coverage areas. I do not have one nor do I know of anyone that does.

Their map looks limited but covers the area i need it for, i do the bulk of my boating in northwestern lake erie and dont really need a TV when i travel with the boat. I actually think the service is based on cell towers, so I've heard anyway. May give it a shot, trying to figure out if this player is dedicated to just this use. Would like to be able to get local programs and maybe plug a dvd into it. Thanks

This is an article about it that was in the Tulsa World which is the paper in Tulsa OK. The article does not say if they are broadcasting it from cell towers or if they are using TV broadcast towers.

New service brings live TV to cell phones

By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Published: 3/15/2010 6:44 PM
Last Modified: 3/15/2010 6:44 PM

Watching video snippets on cell phones is nothing new. But now television — the same broadcasts that go to the big home sets — can be picked up by mobile devices.
Patrick Sokolowski, manager of AT&T Wireless at 5505 E. 41st St., said his company just rolled out this type of service for certain new cell phones in Tulsa this month.
“If you were to pull up your phone and turn on your TV at the same time, the images would be the same,” he said.
AT&T’s service, known as AT&T Mobile TV, is offered in partnership with Flo TV, a mobile TV service offered by Qualcomm for cell phones, as well as car TVs and specialized portable TVs sold at many electronics retailers.
Flo TV’s site notes that the service is also offered in some of Verizon markets, though Verizon officials said it’s not in Tulsa yet.
AT&T Mobile TV is being offered for $9.99 per month, or in a bundle with unlimited data and Web usage for $24.99.
The service literally works like regular television. When the federal government mandated the switch from analog television transmissions to digital, Qualcomm purchased the rights to the former UHF channel 55 in many markets across the nation.
Flo TV uses that segment of the broadcast spectrum to send data for more than a dozen channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News, Nickelodeon, ESPN, Comedy Central and MTV, to cell phones and other mobile devices with microchips to receive them.
AT&T currently has two cell phones that support it, the LG Arena and the Samsung Mythic, though that number is expected to expand to six during
the next few months.
The channels are broadcast live, meaning anyone with the service could start viewing in the middle of a program.
Some of the channels are exactly like their true television counterparts, while others have different programming that would allow users to watch yesterday’s prime time shows in the morning, for example.
Sokolowski said the service is a huge draw to people who want to entertain their children during road trips or see their favorite shows on the go.
“If you’re out and about, you don’t have to be in front of a television to keep up with sports or what’s going on in the world,” he said.
Flo TV is able to offer multiple stations on one channel due to the small size of the devices’ screens. Since the broadcast doesn’t need as much data to be watchable on a small screen, the bandwidth can be divided into smaller streams than regular TV channels, which need to be clear on larger screens.
Though AT&T has offered the service for awhile in other markets, Sokolowski said some Tulsa customers have been surprised something like it is available.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/artic...0_Watchi373093

FLO TV content is transmitted over UHF channel 55. I believe they are co-locating their transmitters on existing cell phone towers, as a vast majority of the towers are owned by 3rd partys & have Sprint, ATT, Verizon, etc transmitters on them if the carrier has built out that area.

But they still have to build out which means they wont get to smaller markets for couple years, if they have enough capital to make it. I really doubt the service will take off as video streaming is becoming more prevelant on the data networks.

With Sprints 4G network now deployed in 35+ markets u can stream hd quality video to & from the device. Flotv i think is pretty limited in bandwidth as the more channels they bring on, they all have to share in that same spectrum.