Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) has reportedly held talks with AT&T (NYSE:T) regarding the potential sale of Qualcomm's 700 MHz spectrum that was used for the Flo TV service that will go dark in the Spring.
Qualcomm originally paid $683 million for the spectrum, which covers the U.S. in 6 megahertz blocks, in two auctions in 2003 and 2008, and Gleacher analyst Mark McKechnie believes the spectrum could garner as much as $1 billion.
Qualcomm has indicated that it has been evaluating a number options for the company's Flo TV business, which never caught on with carriers or consumers when Qualcomm tried a direct-to-consumer play. More recently, Qualcomm indicated that it was studying the possibility of using MediaFLO TV technology for data casting, meaning the technology could offload regular network traffic and reduce network congestion--one of the key issues network operators are grappling with.
For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
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