The expression ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is something that you can always apply to Mobile TV. It is a juggernaut going about its business on the other side of the world, but we can ignore it here in Europe and the US. It’s already in common daily usage in Japan and Korea, but what about China?
Upon being told by a contact in the US they had heard that all development in China on CMMB had halted, we were shocked and thought it was time to check with our friends who have offices over there.
Our last position back in July on Chinese mobile TV was that China Mobile had insisted upon a new conditional access system being brought into use, over and above the Nagra system that had been chosen by regulator State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) for the original service. This had stalled the market, but as long as at least one supplier was determined to provide chips which supported the new CA system, then it would come back online after a 6 month moratorium.
That delay has made nonsense of the SARFT predictions that China would reach 10 million CMMB in 2009, and in July we set a new prediction that something like 3.5 million mobile TV devices would ship there by year end. It turns out we were slightly too pessimistic and this number has been passed at the beginning of December, a considerable increase since deliveries stalled somewhere between 1 and 2 million back in March and most of these have shipped in the fourth quarter.
CMMB is based on STiMi technology, and uses two distinct spectra – S-Band which comes from a satellite and UHF from terrestrial transmitters. So far no satellite transmission has been initiated, because China has pulled its original satellite launch and has so far not re-issued the contract. So all the receivers are getting just one terrestrial signal in UHF. This makes the service city-bound and not receivable in rural areas, with a target of 300 cities having transmitters by the end of this year. If CMMB reaches that many cities, then half of the Chinese population can have mobile TV, so perhaps the satellite will never be sent up.
Another problem that has slowed the uptake of mobile TV in China, but certainly not halted it, has been the decision to throw away the free bouquet and only offer one free channel and only deliver an 8 channel bouquet in most regions, having promised 25 channels. However the price for the paid 7 channels is the equivalent of $1.70 a month, down from a previously announced $2.50 pricing, and it’s not a major disincentive.
As a result 80% of the new TD-SCDMA phones, which have been coming onto the market in droves, are CMMB enabled, with Motorola, Samsung, ZTE and Huawei devices all being based on the Siano SMS1186 chip, and Yulong phones based on local company Innofidei, while all models from LG use the local Telepath chip. There is a similar distribution of non-handset devices and PC dongles.
Throughout mobile TV development around the world, wherever one player has pushed free mobile TV in their phones, then every other player has had to follow.
On the back of this type of success, existing handset suppliers which do not support CMMB, such as Nokia, will eventually risk losing its dominance in China if it does not come out with a CMMB phone, while we understand that Samsung Semiconductor has felt obliged to enter the fray with its own CMMB chip, due out in the Spring.
China Mobile says that it will have 5 million TD-SCDMA devices installed by the end of 2009 and has told local press that it had already reached 3.1 million by the end of October. If CMMB continues to be in 80% of devices, that might push the digital broadcast mobile TV numbers to 4 million by year end.
By October China Mobile was reporting that it had some 202 TD-SCDMA terminals and by the end of November there were 218, including 101 cell phones, 94 data cards and 23 fixed wireless terminals. This included a little known device from Motorola, the MT710 Zhi OPhone, with CMMB.
It’s all too easy to write off Chinese mobile TV development just because Europe and the US cannot agree how to kick start their services and because it’s a long way away geographically, and just because no-one here is sure who should pay for infrastructure and devices. But what’s effectively happened here is that in order to get an edge against Unicom and China Telecom, China Mobile has had to push mobile TV alongside the OPhone spec, as its way to compete with the iPhone from Unicom. If China Mobile makes a visible success of this offering, the other two operators will have to bow to CMMB as a competitive force and begin to order CMMB in their phones. And if that point is reached, a torrent of device orders for mobile TV in China will create a massive consumer uptake.