People’s Daily reports:

According to the Beijing Business News report, China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting will be broadcast in 37 large and medium-sized cities nationwide in early July. By then, citizens can watch the excitement of the Olympic Games through a variety of portable equipment.

…China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB), which suit’s China’s national situation, is a new media technology that has been independently researched. It adopts digital encoding technology and the wireless radio launch gives way to hand-held mobile television.

Sun Chaohui said CMMB is different from current mobile television which is widely used on public transportation. CMMB has adopted a new system of receiving signal through the hand-held equipment using very little energy. Furthermore, users can use a handset television, MP4, PDA which supports the technology of CMMB at the same time. In addition, you can also enjoy mobile television programs on your laptop via a USB television stick.

CMMB’s experimental signal has been introduced into 8 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai,Qingdao, Qinhuangdao up to now. It is said that signal will be completed and privded in 37 cities including the national Olympic Games cities, various provincial capitals and the municipalities at the end of this month.

CMMB will be broadcast in these 37 cities by early July.

Shanghai has been subjected to mobile TV since something like 2003, with the Oriental Pearl Group broadcasting to taxis and buses (the metro uses fixed content on disks) using the DAB standard. With the arrival CMMB, DAB is out and the OPG will switch to the home-grown standard.

I confess that the whole idea of mobile TV irritates me, so maybe I’m not really in a position to comment on it. However, I wonder how it will stack up against China Mobile’s 3G service. While mobile TV may work for a captive audience in a bus or taxi, once consumers have a device that offers more functionality and more bandwidth (and more content?) why go with a dangly dongle or a proprietary device?

I don’t think China Mobile is scared of CMMB getting a 30-odd city head start.

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