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The Korean Broadcasting Commission on Monday selected six firms to provide terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) services. They are KBS, MBC, SBS and three consortiums of smaller companies, namely KMMB, Korea DMB, and YTN DMB.
The companies are expected to launch the broadcast service for handheld terminals - read mobile phones - in Seoul and metropolitan areas in May, when satellite DMB services will also be rolled out.
Terrestrial DMB services will be available free of charge, though satellite DMB services will be offered at a one-time connection charge of W20,000 (US$20) and a monthly subscription fee of W13,000. Satellite DMB services will be available nationwide from May. Terrestrial DMB outside the cities will be rolled out next year.
Cell phone makers are meanwhile racing to launch their DMB handsets and to secure their slice of the market.
More than 2 million subscribers to satellite and terrestrial DMB services are expected next year, creating a new handset market with a volume of at least W1.6 trillion. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) estimates that the DMB market will grow to W12.2 trillion by 2010, creating 80,000 jobs.
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Digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) phones to be launched by Samsung Electronics (left) and LG Electronics. As the Korean Broadcasting Commission picked on Monday six consortiums for licenses to provide terrestrial digital television broadcasting services, DMB handset makers also shifted into high gear./Yonhap
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Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech, which unveiled DMB phones in recent overseas high tech exhibitions like the CeBit in Germany, will release new models soon. Samsung Electronics, the first Korean satellite DMB phone maker, will introduce an upgraded model, the SCH-B130, equipped with a 1.3-megapixel camera and a phone designed for the terrestrial DMB services in April.
Meanwhile, LG Electronics will launch a 2.0-megapixel satellite DMB phone featuring a 2.2-inch liquid crystal display and rotating folder design in April. LGĄ¯s terrestrial DMB phones will hit shops in May. Pantech plans to release a DMB phone model with a horizontal display in June.
(Kim Hee-seop, fireman@chosun.com )
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