LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2014: Qualcomm said it expects to see up to eight operator trials of LTE Broadcast technology across EMEA, Asia and North America in 2014, as the chipset manufacturer looks to build on the world’s first commercial launch of LTE Broadcast services by South Korean operator KT in January.

Verizon and Telstra have already revealed they are trialing LTE Broadcast based on eMBMS (evolved Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service) technology. According to Murthy Renduchintala, Executive Vice President, Qualcomm Technologies (QCT), the two operators are expected to launch commercial services during 2014.

“We’re pretty excited about what LTE Broadcast will mean for carriers,” said Renduchintala, who was speaking at a QCT media briefing during Mobile World Congress.

Renduchintala added that QCT is currently involved in interoperability tests of the technology with four major infrastructure vendors.

By streaming the same content to multiple devices at the same time – similar to a TV broadcast – LTE broadcast gives mobile operators the chance to make more efficient use of network capacity than transferring multiple data streams separately.

“We see this as relevant for a wide range of service,” Renduchintala said.

Also at MWC, QCT unveiled the Snapdragon 801 processor, which includes several new enhancements to its predecessor, the Snapdragon 800.