—Rejiggering services in the U.S.: Today, Qualcomm’s MediaFLO USA subsidiary reaches 150 million people. Qualcomm has a capital intensive model that requires buying the spectrum, building the towers, sourcing the content, and then reaching distribution deals. End users pay about $15 a month for the service. Assayag: “Where we have networks deployed, operators are struggling to ramp up their service.” He said to speed up adoption, they are exploring the idea of using a hybrid model, where users will get free content, and then some additional content, like a sports channel, or HBO, would cost more. Also, with a free model, an advertising model is more effective with a larger install base. “It’s what people are used to in traditional broadcast TV.” Because MediaFLO works with AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), the two will have to endorse any changes.

—Determining the international approach: Assayag said Qualcomm will not buy spectrum or build a network in international markets. Instead, it will help bring the operators and the content providers together—Qualcomm will be the technology vendor. That differs from what the company set out to do initially, since last year it bought a significant chunk of spectrum in the UK for $16.6 million. He said it’s still an attractive swath because they aren’t required to roll out mobile TV on it and it will be good for conducting trials. But “if we go to implement services there, we’ll do that with partners in the UK.” In Japan, they’ve formed a joint venture with KDDI called MediaFLO Japan Planning Incorporated that will explore the roll out of MediaFLO (however, the regulators still need to release the spectrum for such a service).

—Learning from mistakes: I asked Assayag if the approach they are taking internationally are based on the mistakes made in the U.S. “I think the U.S. was the first experience, so we wanted to show it was a good technology and that it was really efficient. Today, we cover 150 million people, which makes it the largest mobile video network worldwide…and since we are expanding the U.S. to 200 million by the end of the 2009, it will make it the largest network by far. So, we wanted to…initiate an ecosystem around devices. Now we have strong cooperation with LG, Samsung and Motorola, and then in 2009 we’ll start marketing pocket TV services (standalone TV devices that aren’t phones). So, of course we will always make mistakes, and hopefully we learn from [them]. We’d say you can always improve things, but from a user experience, MediaFLO USA is the best mobile TV experience anywhere in the world. When we talk about improving the business plan, I think we are flexible enough.”

The rise and the fall of mobile TV: Assayag said mobile TV is a disappointment because it received so much hype. “Three years ago… I think people had huge short-term expectations that it was going to be everywhere fast, and then there were spectrum and ecosystem challenges. The short-term expectations were too big, and now the long-term vision is that it will eventually be there, but it will take time. We believe at some point everyone will have some sort of mobile TV device. We have to put together the right pieces to make it happen—the prices, content, devices, etc., so it’s like a jigsaw. We are still very much committed. We are here for the long-term.”

Mobile World Congress channel