Commack, NY ? The Federal Communications Commission gave mobile TV broadcaster Modeo permission to increase its transmit power by a factor of 10 in urban areas and a factor of 20 in rural areas. The waiver greatly increases Modeo's DVB-H-based mobile TV coverage economics and lessens the potential impact of AT&T having recently joined Verizon as partners with Qualcomm on MediaFLO, a competing mobile TV technology.

"Pre-waiver we were in good shape, but now we're leaps and bounds ahead," said Michael Ramke, president of Modeo (Pittsburgh, PA). Ramke was speaking at a special reception last night (Wednesday) in the Rainbow Room in New York City. The reception was an invitation-only event for carriers, reporters, industry and financial analysts, content providers and entertainment executives that was intended to showcase the company's newly announced HTC-built mobile TV handset and its New York DVB-H beta test network. The reception was also used as a forum to provide an update on the company's current status and future directions.

The waiver applies to the 5 MHz of nationwide L-band spectrum Modeo purchased in 2003 between 1,670 and 1,675 MHz. The approval is consistent with Modeo's formal request to the FCC on Aug. 9, 2005 to increase the aggregate peak power limit from 2 kW EIRP to 4 kW per MHz, for fixed and base station operations in urban and suburban areas and to 8 kW per MHz in rural areas. As such, the approval increases the aggregate permitted transmission power from 2 kW to 20 kW in urban and suburban areas and to 40 kW in rural areas.

According to Ramke, the power increase translates to an 80 percent reduction in the number of transmitter sites needed to cover a market and will both accelerate deployment and lower cost. However, the FCC's approval is initially limited to the 30 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs) specified in Modeo's initial market deployment plan, which covers approximately 40 percent of the US population.

The increase in permitted transmission power comes at an important time in the development of Modeo's mobile TV initiative with the December 2006 announcement of the New York cosmopolitan area test site. Participants in the service include formal beta participants as well as a select group of wireless carriers, digital communication providers, reporters, industry analysts, financial analysts and content providers. The test site uses 65 transmitter sites, has a footprint of 475 square miles and covers a population of 10 million. According to Jason Caliento, vice president of network deployment at Modeo, it also covers a transient population of 40 million tourists and 100 million airport travelers per year.

However, the FCC waiver also follows closely on the heels of the 3GSM announcement on February 12th by AT&T that it would join Verizon in delivering mobile entertainment and information services using technology from Modeo competitor MediaFLO USA (San Diego, Calif.), a subsidiary of Qualcomm. That announcement put MediaFLO clearly in front when it comes to mobile TV deployment in the U.S., according to Will Strauss, analyst at Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.), though Europe is still up for grabs, he added.

According to Modeo's Ramke, the U.S. is also still up for grabs. Despite the Verizon and AT&T decisions, he said that, "70 percent of the addressable device market is still in play. The race for success in the mobile TV space has only begun. It will be defined by mass market consumer adoption, not by distribution deals."

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