China Enters Mobile-TV Fray Competition May Heat Up to Develop Dominant Global Standard
HONG KONG -- 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.
Chinese broadcast authorities this week announced they will launch their own technology standard for mobile TV. The Chinese standard is still in early stages of development.
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 Corp. of Finland and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, for example, have already invested heavily in deploying mobile-TV services in other parts of the world.
Handsets with broadcast video from South Korea, which has been a 3G pioneer, above. China wants to set a 3G standard for its cellphone users, right.
"The Chinese government wants to spin off as much homegrown technology as possible," says Claus Mortensen, research manager for market tracker IDC in Hong Kong.
China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television didn't respond to a request for an interview.
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 cellphones. But with alternative 3G approaches advancing more quickly in other countries, the Chinese standard -- not yet launched commercially -- isn't the only one being developed in China.
Cellphone service providers and broadcasters world-wide are trying to settle on the technology and business models behind providing video content on cellphones. China is the world's largest cellphone 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.
One option for delivering video to cellphones is to stream or download video clips over advanced 2.5G and 3G networks. In China, the influential 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, in 2005, using satellite and terrestrial versions of a Samsung Electronics-backed system called Digital Media Broadcasting. As of March, more than 500,000 handsets outfitted for the service had been sold.
Qualcomm Inc. has launched a proprietary mobile-TV service called MediaFLO in the U.S. 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, according to estimates from Research firm Informa.
The planned Chinese standard, which bears the ungainly name GY/T220.1-2006, could help local telecom providers, such as China Mobile Ltd. and China Netcom Ltd., by reducing the amount of money they have to pay in royalty and intellectual-property fees to foreign companies, according to Sandy Shen, a telecom analyst with Gartner in Shanghai.
But both Nokia and Motorola Inc. of the U.S. said that the announcement would have little impact on their plans to expand mobile-TV services in China and the rest of the world.
"It is very natural that China is looking after its own interests in this area," says Juha Lipiainen, Nokia's Greater China director of mobile-TV business development.
Motorola called the move "just another proof point that no single transmission standard will dominate the landscape for mobile TV."
中国将制定自己的移动电视标准
随着全球的电信公司和广播电视公司纷纷推出了手机电视服务，中国也正在采取措施确保国内的运营商参与到这一潜力巨大的市场之中。
中国广播电视主管部门本周宣布，将推出自己的移动多媒体广播行业标准。中国的标准仍处于开发初期。
监管部门并未表示这套国内标准将是允许在中国使用的唯一标准。但中国标准的存在可能进一步增加急于开发全球手机电视主流标准的公司间的竞争，比如，芬兰诺基亚(Nokia Corp.)和韩国三星电子(Samsung Electronics Co.)这些已经在世界其他地区投入巨资推出手机电视服务的公司。
市场研究机构国际数据公司(IDC)驻香港研究经理克劳斯?莫顿森(Claus Mortensen)称，中国政府希望尽可能地推动国内技术的提高。
中国国家广播电影电视总局(China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television)没有回复记者的采访要求。
中国以前曾有过尝试制定国内技术标准的做法。多年来，中国一直在开发自己的3G无线网络标准。但随着其它国家3G技术的迅速发展，中国的标准──目前尚未商业性推出──并不是在国内推广的唯一标准。
全球的手机服务提供商和广播电视机构都希望能确立手机电视的技术和商业模式。中国是世界上最大的手机市场，分析师认为中国消费者可能更愿意接受手机电视服务，因为订购了付费电视的人很少，而且语音之外的手机服务在中国也深受欢迎。
向手机传输视频的一种做法是通过先进的2.5G或3G网络下载视频内容。中国颇具影响的上海文广新闻传媒集团(Shanghai Media Group)已开始在国内尝试用这种技术提供手机视频服务。
另一种选择是采取类似数字广播的技术播出视频。韩国是第一个推出这种服务的国家，于2005年采用卫星和三星电子支持的数字媒体广播系统的地面版进行播出。截至今年3月份，共有50多万部能获得这一服务的手机售出。
高通公司(Qualcomm Inc.)已在美国推出了被称为MediaFLO的专有移动电视服务。在欧洲和亚洲，包括诺基亚在内的一个行业组织一直在宣传名为DVB-H的标准。根据研究机构Informa的预计，到2010年，全球DVB-H手机的销售量将超过5,000万部。
计划中的中国标准被称为GY/T220.1-2006。Gartner驻上海电信分析师沈哲怡(Sandy Shen)说，这可能对中国移动(China Mobile Ltd.)和中国网通(China Netcom Ltd.)等国内电信运营商有利，帮助它们降低向外国公司支付的版权税和知识产权费。
但诺基亚和美国摩托罗拉公司(Motorola Inc.)都表示，中国标准对它们扩大在中国和全球其它地区手机电视服务的计划没有影响。
诺基亚大中华区移动电视业务开发主管尤哈?利皮埃宁(Juha Lipiainen)说，中国考虑在这一领域谋求自身利益是很自然的事情。
摩托罗拉称，此举只是再次证明了没有任何单一的传输标准能够在手机电视领域独步天下。
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Jane Spencer
