Paul Jacobs, executive vice president of Qualcomm’s Wireless & Internet Group

Apparently, being able to use a cell phone to take photos and videos, store contacts, listen to music, play games and run business software, along with simply speaking to someone, is not enough. Now Qualcomm Inc., San Diego’s highest profile company, wants to add TV watching to the phone’s capabilities.

In a venture led by Paul Jacobs, executive vice president of its Wireless & Internet Group, Qualcomm is investing $800 million in the next four or five years into MediaFLO USA Inc. The subsidiary will build a national distribution network in 2005 and start selling the service in 2006.

“Qualcomm strongly believes that the broad delivery of wireless multimedia services is the logical step in the evolution of the wireless industry,” says Jacobs.

MediaFLO will stream content on the UHF bandwidth Qualcomm acquired the last year or so. The venture is prototypical Qualcomm, with the company absorbing big early expenses and running the service initially, selling it to cellular operators who would in turn offer its 50-100 channels to their customers. At the end of the day, the potential profit for Qualcomm is in selling chips that can handle the service, which is why it already has identified MediaFLO as a likely spin-off. Nearly 20 years ago when Qualcomm was starting, it had to build the phones and transmission equipment to convince operators its technology worked as advertised. It has long since sold off those operations.

In the TV-to-cell-phone venture, Qualcomm has competition from a new chip being developed by Texas Instruments to the next generation of WiFi called WiMAX. But don’t bet against Jacobs or pay much attention to skeptics who see tiny portable televisions as impractical. They probably counseled the same thing about iPods and flip down DVD screens in cars. And hey, what if that phone can tie into the car’s DVD system?