The world's first terrestrial mobile TV service was born in Korea last Thursday. This is a major step toward the so-called "ubiquitous" network society. Ubiquitous is defined as what is "existing or being everywhere at the same time - being present everywhere at once" (source: Merriam Webster ). Korea's major broadcasters --SBS, KBS, YTN, MBC-- were participating in the celebrations, and two of them jointly validated the new service through live programs aired from the top of a mountain and underground stations. The President of South Korea, Mr Roh Moo-Hyun himself, foresaw a growth of the market up to $11.6 billion in five years from now; He also insisted that the new service would become one of the country's key next generation technology.
DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting), and now DMB, for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting since this new service is based on this technology. DMB is based on the Eureka 147 DAB standard; It is quite similar to the competing mobile TV standard DVB-H. It is a digital transmission system for sending data, radio and TV to mobile devices such as mobile phones. It can operate via satellite (S-DMB) or terrestrial (T-DMB) transmission, the latter being an ETSI standard (TS 102 427 and TS 102 428).
Bottom line: users can watch TV anywhere, anytime. CD-audio and video quality contents are transmitted via laptops, mobile phones, MP3s, in-car systems... For the time being, only Seoul and its immediate area are covered in DMB-T, with a nationwide system deployment next year. It looks like small players (Korea DMB and U1 Media) will join the gorilla crowd early next year.
DMB is also a revenue model, out of which all players will want to make money (as perceived through President Roh Moo-Hyun's forecast).
DMB-S satellite driven multimedia broadcasting (source: SK Telecom)
All major channels have immediately started to offer information on weather, entertainment, transportation, shopping. But while the air-to-air service DMB-T is free, the DMB-S satellite is priced in the region of £10/month.
President Roh Moo-Hyun is not the only one to predict a bright future for the DMB (-S, or-T) infrastructure: The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute envisions 10 million subscribers by 2010, starting with a 1.5 prevision for 2006 only.
DMB-S was the first of this combined Sky/Land infrastructure to be launched in May, and has reached 300000+ subscribers in November.
LG Electronics has positioned itself as a front-runner, followed by Samsung Electronics, to lead a market, which is estimated to reach $1.35 billion in 2010.
Samsung Electronics has unveiled nine terrestrial DMB handsets, including seven portable media players, aiming to secure more than 50 percent of the market at home and abroad next year. The company developed the world's first chip for cell phones that will be used for land-based DMB services in June 2004.
LG unveiled the world's first PDA capable to receive terrestrial TV broadcasts. Samsung has developed 9 devices, of which 7 portable media players.
Other DMB systems are being tested worldwide, particularly in Germany, where a test-bed was launched in May, 2005 in Regensburg, Bavaria, while the Greater Munich area's saw the first live broadcast of DMB for Germany, with receivers tested in transports and cars at speed in excess of 200 km/h. The German test system takes the most of the experience acquired with the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting), since DMB is a derivative of DAB.