MediaFLO technology: FLO air interface overview

Abstract

MediaFLO™ is a mobile broadcast technology based on open and global standards. A key component of MediaFLO is the FLO™ (Forward Link Only) air interface technology which has multiple published Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) [13] specifications. FLO is also recognized by ITU-R as a recommended technology for mobile broadcasting and is in the approval process at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Global standardization efforts are driven and supported by the FLO Forum [3], an industry consortia consisting of 90+ member companies throughout the global mobile broadcast value chain. MediaFLO technology has been launched commercially in the United States (USA) through the nationwide mobile broadcast network built by MediaFLO USA, Inc [10]. Verizon Wireless has deployed MediaFLO services in 50 U.S. markets, and AT&T expects to launch commercial services in early 2008 leveraging the MediaFLO USA network. In addition, MediaFLO technology is being trialed in major markets around the world. Unlike other mobile broadcast technologies that have evolved from legacy systems, MediaFLO was designed from the ground up for the mobile environment. Consequently, it can deliver mobile broadcast services in a very efficient manner and offers unique advantages such as low receiver power consumption, fast channel switching time, robust reception in mobile fading channels, high spectral efficiency and efficient statistical multiplexing of service channels. MediaFLO technology achieves all of these advantages simultaneously without compromising one for another. Figure 7.1 shows the MediaFLO protocol stack on the interface between the MediaFLO network and the MediaFLO device. The FLO Air Interface specification consists of Physical Layer, MAC (Medium Access Control) Layer, Control Layer and Stream Layer. The Transport Layer [5] forms a sequence of application service packets for a service component such as video and audio into fixed-size blocks or an octet stream every second for delivery over the Stream Layer. The Media Adaptation Layer provides adaptations that are specific to the class of content being transported, such as real-time streaming services, non-real-time services and IP (Internet Protocol) datacast packets. This chapter gives an overview of the FLO Air Interface (standardized in TIA-1099 [4]). The rest of this chapter is organized as follows: Section 7.2 presents the overall layering architecture of the FLO Air Interface. Section 7.3 is devoted to the Physical Layer of the FLO system including Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation characteristics, interlace structure, superframe structure, Physical Layer subchannels, and waveform generation for data and OIS (Overhead Information Symbol) channels. The MAC Layer of the FLO system is addressed in Sect. 7.4 with coverage on data encapsulation, Reed-Solomon code and time-frequency resource allocation to services. Sections 7.5 and 7.6 deal with the Control Layer and Stream Layer, respectively. In Sect. 7.7, the FLO Air Interface handling scenarios at the FLO receiver including MLC (Multicast Logical Channel) reception and MLC switching are given. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.