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China Cell Phone TV on the Move
By Michael R. Polin
The International Law Offices of Michael R. Polin
Exclusively for InvestorIdeas.com
November 06, 2007
There are so many cool happenings in China right now that concern the cell phone content, technology, software, and distribution markets. Lots of potential opportunities for our readers if we know the trends, challenges, standards, applications, policies, content demands, user demographics operations and the main players in the space.
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I will take a few articles over the next few weeks and break it all down for my cell phone (content and tekkie loving) readers so you are informed and ready to analyze opportunities should you wish to jump into this market.
Today we look at applications and policies of the Chinese Government and regulated companies.
Mobile TV refers to the application that enables handset users to watch television programs through mobile phones equipped with operating systems and video functions. There are currently two categories of mobile TV services. One is run by telecom operators, and provides handset users TV programs on the basis of mobile networks. The other is run by broadcasting operators, and allows audiences to watch TV on mobile terminals through digital broadcasting networks.
The mobile network-based mobile TV service features video on demand (VOD) content and interactive programming. Because of its one-to-one transmission model, it is not competent in handling large volumes of traffic and support a large audience.
The broadcasting network-based mobile TV is one-to-many communication, which is ideal for one-way live broadcasting. It can support a large audience and its operation cost is relatively lower.
China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has issued mobile TV licenses to the Shanghai Media Group (SMG), China Central Television (CCTV)'s CCTV.com, Southern Media Corp. (SMC), China National Radio (CNR), China Radio International (CRI) and Beijing TV Station (BTV), giving them the right to offer mobile TV services based on the mobile communication network. Telecom operators without a mobile TV license must cooperate with broadcasters to provide of mobile TV services.
China, as the world's largest mobile communication market, is now home to more than 500 million mobile subscribers. In addition, there are more than 1.2 billion TV viewers in the country. The combination of mobile and TV markets will likely create a huge market in the future. However, there were only 220,000 mobile TV subscribers in 2005, up 120 percent from 100,000 subscribers in 2004. The market developed slowly in 2006 due to limitation of network bandwidth, content and high fees. The low penetration indicates that China's mobile TV market is still at an initial stage of development.
Fig 1: China's mobile subscribers, 2003-2006 (mln)
Source: MII
In order to recruit future users, many local mobile operators and service providers are testing such services in different parts of the country. However, large-scale commercial operation of mobile TV has yet to make significant progress in the country.
POLICY
To date, SARFT has issued six mobile TV licenses, to SMG, CCTV.com, SMC, CNR, CRI and BTV, allowing them to operate mobile TV services on mobile communication networks.
Apart from the mobile network-based services, in October 2006 SARFT issued a transmission technology standard called the STiMi (satellite terrestrial interactive multiservice infrastructure), which is the core component of an industrial standard for digital broadcasting of mobile TV services called the CMMB (China Multimedia Broadcasting).
Meanwhile, local operators are not allowed to test or operate mobile TV services without approval from SARFT.
Next time we will look at the various Standards being employed to make these networks efficient and profitable and how you can benefit from this.
Disclaimer
Michael R. Polin is an independent columnist for this web site.
Michael R. Polin may hold long or short positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this article and those positions can change at any moment. InvestorIdeas.com Disclaimer:
www.InvestorIdeas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp, InvestorIdeas is not affiliated or compensated by the companies mentioned in this article.
Michael R. Polin is a freelance writer. Nothing in the articles should be construed as an offer or solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any specific products or securities. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
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