Seeing China launched their 3G for retail customers, its very interesting to see what will be their product and services, especially for incoming Global event like Olympic in August 2008. From my personal review as telecom companies and broadcasters around the globe rush to offer television services over mobile phones, China is taking steps to ensure that its domestic players don't miss out on the potentially massive market (nationwide and soon regional market).
From news, I have seen that China broadcast authorities announced they will launch their own technology standard for mobile TV. Somehow, Chinese standard is still in early stages of development (wondering?). In here, regulators didn't suggest the domestic standard would be the only one allowed in China. But the existence of a Chinese standard could ratchet up competition between companies in the scramble to develop a dominant global standard for mobile TV. Nokia, SonyEricsson and Samsung, for example, have already invested heavily in deploying mobile-TV services in other parts of the world.
I just want to quote an email from my friend in IDC says "China government wants to spin off as much homegrown technology as possible."
Again, China has tried this homegrown approach to technology standards before. It has been working for several years to develop its own standard for so-called third-generation wireless networks -- the high-speed networks used to deliver games, video clips and other data services to mobile phones. But with alternative 3G approaches advancing more quickly in other countries, Chinese standard -- not yet launched commercially -- isn't the only one being developed in China. Mobile operators and broadcasters world-wide are trying to settle on the technology and business models behind providing video content on cellphones. And amazingly, China is the world's largest mobile phone market, and analysts think its consumers may be particularly receptive to mobile-TV services, since few have existing pay-TV subscriptions, and because cellphone services beyond voice are extremely popular in China.
As part of my experiences, one option for delivering video to mobile phone is to stream or download video clips over advanced 2.5G and 3G networks. And personally, I have read and seen, like Shanghai Media Group has begun trials providing its content to cellphones with this technology. Another option is to broadcast video with a technology that works the way digital radio does.
South Korea was the first country to roll out such a service, since 2005 (may be before?), using satellite and terrestrial versions of a Samsung Electronics-backed system called Digital Media Broadcasting. In US, a company like Qualcomm Inc. has launched a proprietary mobile-TV service called MediaFLO. In Europe and Asia, an industry group that includes Nokia has been touting a standard called DVB-H. More than 50 million DVB-H phones are expected to be sold globally by 2010, ref from Research firm Informa.
And Chinese standard (as I have heard from my friend in Gartner), which bears the ungainly name GY/T220.1-2006, could help local telecom providers, such as China Mobile and China Netcom, by reducing the amount of money they have to pay in royalty and intellectual-property fees to foreign companies. And this standarization have feedback from both Nokia and Motorola that the announcement would have little impact on their plans to expand mobile-TV services in China and the rest of the world.
Next question: Who want to watch TV in mobile phone?
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