There are several competing mobile TV standards around the world, including the European DVB-H  system, but Qualcomm claims surface advantages for MediaFLO, including better quality, its use of less power on the handset, and more efficient use of bandwidth by allocating it dynamically. Ben Wallace, the senior program manager for FLO TV, believes that the DVB signal may be “good enough” for some people but MediaFLO has better quality video. “Our waveform, I think, is stunning,” Wallace said.

Like broadcast TV and unlike some IPTV systems, switching from channel to channel on your phone is very fast. Wallace claims that the switching time between channels is "two seconds at most” and in our tests we did find changing channels was very fast. You don't have to wait for the phone to connect to a streaming server or to buffer a download as it receives the signal as soon as you turn it on, which makes switching channels so fast.

FLO TV is only available on certain handsets from Samsung, LG, and Motorola. AT&T offers the LG Invision, the LG Vu, the Samsung Access and the Samsung Eternity, while Verizon offers the Voyager and the Motorola Krave ZN4.

There are also more handsets on the way. Acer plans MediaFLO support with its Acer F1 (due out this fall or early next year, this will be the first Windows Mobile device with MediaFLO) and Qualcomm hopes to persuade RIM to include MediaFLO support in a future BlackBerry.