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Qualcomm watchers will not only be aware that the company has waged an obsessive war against DVB-H, pushing its own MediaFLO mobile TV system, a similar but updated design, but will also be aware that Qualcomm has historically proven entirely new forms of communication by buying spectrum, creating the technology that will use it best, and then using that as a demonstration platform to go and conquer the market. That is the basis of how CDMA came to market, establishing the company's gigantic intellectual property business in cellular.

In the context of the billions of dollars that Qualcomm hopes to make, $16m is a tiny amount of money, especially if for that, the chip giant can defend MediaFLO and give it a basis in Europe - if that's all that it has to spend. But of course it now has to decide whether or not to build a MediaFLO network and decide on the size and scope of such a project. Qualcomm is reported to be spending $800m on MediaFLO in the US, and last quarter spent some $76m in the US, building out more and more markets for a service that is supposed to be taken to market by both AT&T and Verizon, the top two cellular operators there.

The big problem with the service is no fault of Qualcomm's. It is not well marketed by Verizon (AT&T has only just launched) and the content offering that it has been allowed by the major US content owners leaves a lot to be desired, with Fox and Disney's ESPN and other properties all allowing only their pre-digested, made-for-mobile content profiles on the system. MediaFLO in the US would take off tomorrow if it were a free-to-air service with better content, but it is a paid service with short form content - as we say, it's not the technology's fault. AT&T has been able to convince Sony to launch a film channel on MediaFLO, which may make some difference for its own offering.

What Qualcomm did in the US was take the pain of getting involved in mobile TV away from the cellcos by building out a network, negotiating for content and sourcing the devices. It has conducted two trials in the UK of MediaFLO technology, working with News Corp's BSkyB, and there are obvious strategies that it might adopt to cement that partnership. For instance, it might build out a major city like London, or even several Cities, with MediaFLO transmitters and then use them to deliver a huge chunk of BSkyB programming in mobile TV. Cellular operators, frustrated that there is no 700MHz spectrum, thought to be ideal for DVB-H, available in the UK, might join in as a route to market - especially Vodafone and O2. The other large UK operators, Orange and T-Mobile, have merged their TDD spectrum and entered a commercial mobile TV trial using TDtv from Nextwave.

The important thing would be to offer full programming from Sky, not made-for-mobile snippets, which although fine for cellular streaming snacking, are known not to take off in high enough numbers for full mobile TV. Sky might pay for much of this in reduced TV churn, and choose only to charge non-Sky subscribers. The prospect of picking up more device business from Vodafone and others, might lead Qualcomm to keep device costs down, in partnership with its usual Korean allies, Samsung and LG, which both have MediaFLO handsets. BSkyB has worked with all the major consumer electronics manufacturers in providing set-tops, and has its subsidiary NDS to solve any insurmountable technology issues such as digital rights management protection.

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