US mobile television venture, Hiwire, says it is now two years away from a national build-out of its network in its 700MHz spectrum, and will then cover 181m potential customers.
In April, Hiwire expects to begin consumer trials of its service in Las Vegas, the same market rival Qualcomm MediaFLO chose for its initial launch. Hiwire said it chose the city for the opportunity to make direct comparisons with MediaFLO, and because it represents an accurate snapshot of US demographics. More pragmatically, it is a market where traditional television broadcasters, which have to vacated the 700MHz spectrum eventually, have already cleared the frequencies for the new usage.
Hiwire owns twice as much bandwidth as MediaFLO in the 700MHz spectrum, and so claims it will provide twice the number of channels at the same quality. It uses the DVB-H standard, as does another US provider, Modeo, which is testing its service in New York, but has to use higher spectrum bands.