The introduction of digital terrestrial mobile television reflects the passive nature of mainland telecommunications operators in dealing with the coming convergence that will one day see multimedia content carried on their networks.
Last month, the mainland government announced the long-awaited restructuring that will merge the six state-owned telecommunications carriers into three entities that can provide fixed line and mobile services. The government also stated that three licences for high-speed 3G services will be issued once the mergers are completed.
While the government statement mentioned that the restructuring needs to deal with the imbalance within the market because of China Mobile's more than 70 per cent market share, there were few details on digital convergence. Mobile and fixed-line operators may be looking at sourcing their own content unless they seek partnerships with official broadcasters.
China Mobile Communications Corp, the parent of Hong Kong-listed China Mobile, began trials of the mainland's first 3G service in April in eight cities. It uses the TD-SCDMA standard, which was developed on the mainland.
However, the trial only provides limited multimedia services.
China Mobile initially aims to make available Phoenix Satellite Television's Chinese channel and China Central Television's channel 1 and channel 5 on its 3G platform.
