The Road to WiMAX TV

UDcast® Unveils WiMAX TV at NAB 2008

With its central theme of IPTV the NAB 2008 did not disappoint the visitors with new technologies on display. UDcast, a company known for its IPTV, Mobile Tv products based on DVB-H  and DVB-SH technologies has now  unveiled its WiMAX TV product.

Earlier in March 2008, Nextwave had unveiled its WiMAX TV  Platform called MXtv. Nextwave platform is based on the use of the multicast and broadcast feature of mobile WiMAX and can handle different types of multimedia content including video in QVGA or CIF resolution and can support 45 multicast channels in 10 MHz of WiMAX bandwidth.

With the imminent launch of XOHM and other mobile WiMAX services in US and other parts of the world, delivery of TV to mobiles using multicast and broadcast service(MBS) becomes an attractive proposition. WiMAX TV, which is based on multicasting of streaming mobile TV content has many potential advantages as it is independent of carriers which deliver the service, country and can be received over any WiMAX enabled handset, WiMAX notebook or other devices.

WiMAX uses the relatively inexpensive wireless network for delivery of  multimedia content ( Video, music or pictures) and can provide speeds which are an order of magnitude higher as compared to cellular or 3G networks. Due to its high spectral efficiency coupled with quality of service features the content can be delivered in a multicast manner as compared to generating individual streams for each user. WiMAX is an open technology and effectively brings the entire internet in the mobile domain.