By 2012, the number of mobile TV users in Asia Pacific will top 30 million, up from 8 million this year. And the number of 3G streaming video users will soar from 95 million to 200 million, according to Media Partners Asia.

With that bullish outlook, it's no wonder numerous mobile broadcasting players and advocates are testing and offering mobile TV services in the region, aiming to capture a slice of that burgeoning market.

As Jawahar Kanjilal, Director of Multimedia Experiences at Nokia Multimedia Asia Pacific, observes, "This marks the beginning of exciting times in the Asia Pacific broadcasting industry" as digital television is brought to consumers' pockets to "usher in a new era of personal interactive entertainment".

The buzz of activity also sees the differing mobile broadcasting standards – Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H), MediaFLO and Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) – jostle for adoption in each market.

Adrian Tong, Research Associate at Media Partners Asia, expects DVB-H and DMB to be the two main standards in Asia Pacific, with the former as the most prevalent. DVB-H is likely to prevail as it is backed by international players including Nokia, Ericsson and Texas Instruments, and it has a healthy head start with commercial services already rolled out and about 16 trials being held or planned in the short-term in territories including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Tong expects DMB will become a more localized standard as it is actively pursued in Korea, China, and India. While MediaFLO may continue to dominate the US market, it faces a hard road in Asia, although it is being trialed in Hong Kong and Taiwan and plans to launch in Japan.

Outside of the three main standards, Tong believes China's homegrown standards of China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) and Satellite Terrestrial Interactive Multi-service Infrastructure (StiMi) are likely to experience strong demand from China's large domestic mobile market. But like, the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB) standard in Japan, it will probably be confined to one market.

The DVB-H standard already looks to be in the driving seat with the widest adoption in the region, partly because it is an extension from the Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) standard already used by broadcasters for digital terrestrial TV transmission. The DVB standard also strengthened its position in Asia Pacific as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia announced on June 19 its endorsement of DVB-T as the ASEAN common digital terrestrial broadcasting standard. That followed the ninth annual Conference of the ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Information (AMRI) held on May 24, 2007 in Jakarta.

Moreover, DVB-H is supported by Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia which has been proactively helping regional players launch mobile TV services. Bill Chang, Nokia Siemens Networks' Country Director for Malaysia, sees the company's involvement in a commercial service in that territory as part of its vision of "connecting five billion people globally by 2015."

The MediaFLO technology entered the fray in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan as an alternative to the DMB and DVB-H standards as Qualcomm formed partnerships with established multi-platform content providers and service operators to trial MediaFLObased mobile TV services.

Despite being trialed in Europe, the DMB standard has not caught on in Asia Pacific, with the notable exceptions of Korea, China and most recently, Indonesia which is building a nationwide DMB mobile TV network. It remains to be seen how China's adoption of the DMB standard along with the emergence of its in-house China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) standard will impact the regional mobile broadcasting landscape as it gears up to offer mobile TV for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H)

The DVB-H front has seen the most developments and widest adoption in Asia Pacific with players in Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam in various stages of DVB-H-based mobile TV trials and commercial service roll outs.

Broadcast Australia, Thomson and Irdeto worked on a DVBH trial that ran from May 7 to July 31, 2007 in Sydney. The partners tested a new generation of head-end, digital access and content protection systems, statistical multiplexing as well as reception performance and functionality of new handsets including Samsung's SGHP930. Five channels including public broadcasters ABC's digital channels ABC, ABC2 and SBS, as well as Turner Broadcasting's CNN and Boomerang were available to trial participants.

The trial was the third phase of Broadcast Australia's efforts to deliver mobile TV in Australia. The first phase ran from July 2005 to July 2006 and provided for coverage survey and market research on 400 participants, while the second took place from August 2006 to January 2007 to further coverage survey work and demonstrate capabilities of new receivers. Also, DVB-H technology made significant headway in Southeast Asia helped by Nokia's collaboration with players in the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and India.

Malaysia's MiTV Corporation Sdn. Bhd. And Nokia are collaborating to offer commercial mobile broadcast service 018 in the second half of 2007. Nokia Siemens Networks, provider of mobile and fixed network infrastructure solutions, will maintain MiTV's infrastructure and provide expertise through its deployment process which includes implementation, integration and application development services.

In December 2006, Vietnam became the first market in Asia Pacific to launch a DVB-H-based commercial mobile TV service as Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) joined with Nokia. Ninedigital TV channels, a VoD service offering VTC content, four radio channels and a free demo channel are available to consumers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Haiphong on pay-TV and pay-per-views. The service is expected to be extended nationwide within two years.

Nokia also collaborated with India's pubcaster Doordarshan to deliver pilot DVB-H transmissions in December 2006 to test reception quality of coverage, assess service schemes including advertising and interactive services, as well as gauge consumer expectations. The commercial service launched in Delhi in May, offering eight free-to-air Doordarshan channels DD National, DD News, DD Sports, DD Bharati, DD Urdu, DD Punjabi, DD Bangla and DD Podhigai.

In the Philippines, mobile operator Smart Communications and MediaQuest Holdings' 360media Corp., subsidiaries of dominant telco Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) worked with Nokia to initiate a mobile TV trial from March 11 and subsequently launched the commercial service dubbed myTV on July 24.

MediaQuest, through its controlling interest in Nation Broadcasting Corporation (NBC),

provides the broadcast service while Smart offers marketing and infrastructure support. Currently, the service offers channels including CNN, MTV Philippines, Cartoon Network, National Geographic Channel, local movie channel Pinoy Box Office, The History Channel, Solar Sports, Basketball TV, ETC and Jack TV, with the last four still on test. myTV will also carry Philippines Basketball Association's games live on its service from the upcoming season.

The monthly package costing P488 (US$10.70) is available to both post- and pre-paid Smart subscribers although the service is free until August 31. Citing Filipino viewers' average television viewing of 4 hours daily, MediaQuest and 360media Corp. President and CEO Orlando Vea stated, "myTV will allow us even more viewing time and will forever change primetime TV as we know it."

Also looking to deploy commercial DVB-H mobile TV service in the Philippines, Philippine Multimedia Systems Incorporated's (PMSI) Dream Satellite TV is testing eight channels on selected Samsung handsets, 4Caster M2 encoders from Envivio and UDcast's network solutions. It plans to use both ISMACryp and simulcrypt to secure content and to provide subscriber access to its service. The DTH pay-TV service provider has five transmitters distributed across metro Manila where the commercial service will be available initially. It will eventually provide nationwide coverage and content via partnerships with content providers including the Associated Broadcasting Company (ABC5).

Singapore's PGK Media received a mobile TV trial license in 2006 to test technical and commercial parameters, and proceeded from technical trials to offer the full TV2GO digital mobile TV trial in the city state. PGK Media is working with main system integrator and technology enabler Zentek Technology, technology partner NCS Communications Engineering, and the Media Development Authority (MDA) to conduct the trial, which is open to 100 broadcast industry professionals and is scheduled to end this December.

CNBC Asia Pacific, ESPN STAR Sports and Kamera Pte Ltd are providing live channels to offer news, sports and entertainment content, while Nokia and Samsung are supplying their latest handsets including Nokia N92 and N77 as well as Samsung SGHP930. TV2GO supports real-time interactive services such as voting, content purchase and access to dedicated micro-sites.

Qualcomm MediaFLO

Currently used in North America, Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology made its way into Asia Pacific as partners in Hong Kong and Taiwan launched trials, and the company established two joint ventures in Japan to explore the possibilities of deploying MediaFLO services.

In Hong Kong, quadruple play service provider PCCW Ltd. And Qualcomm initiated a technical trial of MediaFLO which runs from May 14 to November 13, 2007. The trial tests the capabilities of MediaFLO handsets for PCCW's now TV IPTV network and allows PCCW to assess potential business models of a MediaFLO-based commercial mobile TV service.

Seeing mobile TV as a "natural extension" to PCCW's offerings, Paul Berriman, Chief Technology Officer of PCCW, believes the Hong Kong market is ready for a mobile TV service which complements the company's existing 3G-based interactive multimedia offerings.

In Taiwan, China Network Systems (CNS) and Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) collaborated with Qualcomm on a technical trial in Taipei from March 2007. Four CNS channels and three TTV channels have been used to evaluate MediaFLO capabilities.

With pay-TV penetration at 84%, Taiwan has been identified by Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President and President, Qualcomm Internet Services and MediaFLO Technologies, as "one of the key markets in the region" to highlight the significance of the MediaFLO trial in Taipei. While the dominant standard for mobile broadcasting in Japan is the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting – Terrestrial's (ISDB-T) 1seg standard, it has not deterred Qualcomm from entering the market. The company formed a joint venture with KDDI Corporation as MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc. in 2005 and has partnered with Softbank to set up the Mobile Media Planning Corporation to explore deployment opportunities for MediaFLO services in the country.

In March 2007, MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc. announced 'encouraging' results from Accenture Japan's consumer survey on attitudes towards mobile TV. Polling 3,000 Japanese consumers, the survey found consumers to be more likely to take up mobile broadcasting services if provided with first-hand experience.

Hailing the survey's findings as "compelling evidence" for the commercial viability of MediaFLO services in Japan, Kazuhiko Masuda, President of MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc. said, "We are convinced that the survey results illustrate that paid mobile services are attractive to Japanese customers despite the availability of the free ISDB-T service, and we believe both services can co-exist."

Identifying Japan as a "strategic market for mobile TV and advanced video services", Qualcomm's hosted the first MediaFLO Conference in Tokyo on June 8 at Hotel Okura. Qualcomm senior executives, Masuda as well as Masahiko Yabuki, president of Mobile Media Planning Corp., provided updates and information on the MediaFLO mobile broadcast solution to current and potential business partners. Yabuki also announced that his company is surveying bandwidth availability to roll out MediaFLO services in 2009, two years ahead of its original projection of 2011.

Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB)

While the DMB standard is established in Korea and China, it has not attracted the same levels of regional interest that DVB-H is enjoying, with Indonesia the only market opting for DMB outside of those two nations.

Korea's TU Media continues to be the leading model of success for DMB as the company's subscriber base currently stands at 1.2 million. Targeting to reach 1.8 million subscribers at the end of this year and 2.5 million in 2008, TU Media's 15 video channels (with two to be added), 20 audio and one data channels now reach more than 80 cities and various expressways and subways in Seoul.

With DMB services already on air in Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and Guangdong reaching a combined population of 50 million, the DAB family of standards, inclusive of DMB, represents the only foreign multimedia broadcasting standard to have been adopted by China's broadcast regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT).

DMB and the homegrown CMMB technology look set to become complementary standards for China's mobile broadcasting industry as inter-operable mobile TV devices are expected to roll out later in 2007 in time for mobile broadcast services covering the Olympics.

A notable DMB development in the region is the MODIBEC project announced on July 6, 2007 as a 2-year European Union (EU)-funded initiative to enhance co-operation between China and Europe in digital broadcasting and mobile communications convergence. MODIBEC aims to bring together European and Chinese governments, trade bodies and the private sector to promote and support development projects and establish joint ventures.

MODIBEC partners include Motorola, Thomson, Siemens and Blaupunkt; Chinese broadcasters Beijing Jolon Digital Media Broadcasting Co. Ltd., Shanghai Media and Entertainment Group's Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group Co. Ltd., and Guangdong Mobile TV Media Co. Ltd.; China Satellite Communications Corporation, WorldDMB and PTV AG.

As a start, WorldDMB was due to hold three workshops in China in August to encourage European and Chinese digital broadcasting and mobile communications researchers to co-develop techniques and solutions to further international cooperation.

Finally, Indonesian electronics company PT Agis Tbk, IPTV and mobile TV systems integrator BNS and DMB technology provider Toshiba announced on July 16 a partnership to build a broadcast-based nationwide DMB mobile TV network in Indonesia, scheduled for launch in early 2008. Operated by Agis, the network is expected to cover Indonesia's 200 regions with a single frequency to allow subscribers to watch the same mobile TV programs nationwide.

Toshiba is supplying major head-end and transmission equipment, management software, and will provide technical and operating expertise. Agis will import and distribute new mobile handsets and devices throughout Indonesia, and is currently in discussions with potential partners including mobile operators and content owners.

"With a youthful population and low but fast growing mobile penetration, Indonesia is the perfect market for a broadcastbased mobile TV service," noted Anna Maria, Senior Officer at Agis.

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