Chinese mobile TV debut difficult due to multiple potential standards

Is China's mobile television implementation a mess because of conflicting standards?  Yes, according to an item by Fons Tuinstrain the China Herald.

Tuinstrain covered a meeting of Mobile Monday Shanghai that featured a panel with five speakers discussing mobile TV.  He writes, "Despite the generally optimistic tone of the speakers, at the end of the evening I found only one way to describe the developments: what a disaster."

The problem is China is wrestling with offering mobile TV over regular cellular channels (that's when writers write "3G") as well as implementing a dedicated mobile TV network (such as Qualcomm-based MediaFLO or DVB-H systems).

Major problems

Here's what Tuistrain says, based on what he heard during the meeting:

"There are at least two major problems.  First, all major government departments and other stakeholders are involved in the regulatory process of mobile TV.

"The ministry of information industry (MII), the State Administration of radio, film and TV (SARFT), the traditional TV-stations, China Mobile. All these stakeholders hate each others guts, so it is very hard to get consensus about anything.

"Even an agreement on the standard that is going to be used does not exist.  They agreed to stop the international standards, but otherwise there is no agreement.

"Most likely a Chinese standard is going to be used, but since that is not sure, no hardware or applications can be developed.  When that agreement does not emerge very soon, the system will miss its political deadline: the 2008 Olympic Games...

"3G is not doing much better at this stage in terms of getting the official process rolling.  Licensing providers might have been postponed till 2008, although big scale experiments are on its way and the Chinese standard of TD-SCDMA seems a sure winner.

"More important, the 3G track has been able to avoid the second pitfall that is now hampering Mobile TV.  It is seen as a pure telecom project and will avoid any link with terms like 'broadcasting'.

The main purpose:  keep the SARFT-like forces out.  The telecom companies have only one interest:  recoup their investment as fast as possible."

What will be broadcast?

Another thorny issue is what content will be allowed for mobile TV in China.

Tuinstrain wonders whether Chinese mobile TV subscribers will be able to watch the type of programs they want or whether Chinese governmental bodies, such as SARFT, will censor programs.

Given the way China censors Internet sites, I don't think there's any point in wondering.  Chinese mobile TV will be censored under the watchful eyes of the government just as the Internet is censored for "politically incorrect" sites.