China has granted a 400-million-yuan (US$54 million) government
fund to develop mobile phone-based TV technology in the next three
years, the Ministry of Science and Technology said yesterday on its
website.
Chinese firms are developing homegrown mobile TV standards so
that they do not need to pay high royalty fees to Western firms if
people use their standards instead.
"The fund is to finance the development from system research to
end-equipment design and test process. That will help China
establish a self-innovated mobile TV industry chain," the statement
said.
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will be
responsible for the project, according to the statement. That
indicated SARFT and media groups will dominate the mobile TV
technology, industry insiders said.
Debate has raged on for a long time on whether media groups,
such as Shanghai Media Group, or telecommunications operators, like
China Mobile, should dominate the potentially big mobile TV market
in China.
The country is the world's No. 1 market for mobile phone users
with more than 500 million. Its mobile TV services will attract 94
million users in 2009, a whopping 315-percent growth annually since
2005, according to In-Stat, a US-based research firm.
CMMB, or China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting, which was backed
by SARFT, has grown rapidly in China.
Mobile digital TV firm Siano Mobile Silicon has signed a deal
with CMB Satellite and Huaqi, an electronic maker to provide
solutions for China's mobile TV services based on CMMB
technology.
The technology uses satellite and terrestrial signals for
effective coverage in densely populated cities and sparsely
populated rural areas.
(Shanghai Daily December 13, 2007)
