AT&T acquires FLO TV for $1.9 billion

Qualcomm [NASDAQ: QCOM] has agreed to sell is FLO solution for mobile broadcast TV to AT & T [NYSE: T] of 1.92 billion U.S. dollars. The underlying FLO TV spectrum is at the bottom 700 MHz frequency, and spans more than 300 million customers in the United States. AT & T said it intends to implement the spectrum as a supplemental downlink in connection with their deployment of 4G mobile broadband networks, to reap the benefits of the capacity to meet the demand for large amounts of multimedia content. The companies plan for the transaction to close 2nd half of 2011.

It was reported that Qualcomm spent 683 million U.S. dollars to acquire the FLO TV spectrum, which covers more than 70 million people in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco (12MHz of spectrum D and E block ), along with more than 230 million people around the rest of the country (6MHz spectrum block D). Qualcomm says it has invested a total of about $ 800 million from the spectrum, network development and marketing to launch the FLO network TV less than 1 million customer records. Qualcomm is anticipating additional costs of $125-175 million in fiscal 2011 from the FLO TV business.

FLO TV offers live and delayed broadcast content providers including ESPN, CNN, MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. FLO TV was only available in limited markets at first, but it was all over the country in mid-2009 at the key moment of transition from analog to digital. Qualcomm’s FLO TV service will finished on the 27th of March, 2010.