Thursday, August 30, 2007

mobile TV and TV mobile

In China, people raised the arguments on the mobile TV till so far. Should mobile TV/TV mobile be defined as new media or just the new application on the mobile network? Many experts raised their argument base: someone said content is the most important for the new stuff, just like content does to TV, so better be mobile TV; while someone else said the transmission telecom network is so vital that it is only a new technology developed from the mobile base.

I would say it is both. it will carry the content of course, and it is also part of the mobile service. However, behind all the arguments, the basic question is the power fight between the two regulatory departments, Ministry of Information Industry(MII) regulating telecom companies and the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT).With the merging of the industries regulated by the two regulators, the conflicts has increased a lot, from the Internet shown on TV, to the TV shown on the mobile. The two departments not only has diffferent opinion on how to regulate the new services, but also support different technical standards. For example, the SARFT proposed a new standard, named China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting, using the STiMi standard, and annouced to use it during the Beijing Olympics 2008; however, the stanford is not very accepted by the MII and the mobile carriers.

The deeper side is also on the two regulators' industry. MII, as one of the nation's pinoeers, has encouraged the competition between telecom carriers and the overseas listing of the four largest telecom companies. The telecom industry created the revenue of over 600 billion yuan last year, almost 7 times of the revenue created by the media industry (regulated by SARFT) with only 88.9 billion yuan. It is understandable that the SARFT may feel a little envy towards the peer. But they should learn more from the peer instead of just trying to grab from MII. Taking a look at the SARFT, it is easily found the pieces containing keywords such as "forbidden", "stop","warning". In fact, the development of an industry should be depend on the regulator's positive attitude, while "forbidden" is definitely not the right word.

We have seen the fast development of Chinese mobile carriers and their must improved customer services. ( if you tried 10086, the customer service line of China Mobile). But then people are still complaing the higher and higher charge of cable fees but still bad customer service of cable companies(usually just TV stations). If customers are satisfied, they will pay more, and in reverse, they will not pay when they could be satisfied. so either mobile TV or TV mobile, who could provide a better service, who will win.

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