We have said in the past that T-DMB systems will come and they will go, and that as long as they are not used like the UK DAB IP system, to deliver too many channels without enough bandwidth, they will produce perfectly good mobile TV systems.
But the trial launched this week in Indonesia is more hopeful that expectant, since Indonesia uses DVB-T digital terrestrial technology and has just undergone a major 20 channel DVB-H trial throughout 2006.
While we’re not sure how many channels this new T-DMB service is offering, we think it sits on an existing DAB multiplex, and so it will only be good for 2 or 3 TV channels at a decent level of screen resolution. No system using T-DMB, except the one in Korea which has special spectrum allocated to it, has proved commercially successful. There has been a German system operating through Debitel since last summer, but this has only attracted 3,000 customers, and the UK DAB IP Movio system from BT initially only attracted 7,000 when sold by Virgin.
By contrast the Korean system with specially allocated multiple adjacent T-DMB spectrum slices, has attracted 2.8 million customers.
Korean sources were naturally playing up the T-DMB win as a huge step forward because it uses Korean handset technology, but our guess is that Indonesia will shortly allocate DVB-H spectrum and run with its 20 channel system.