Like DMB, mobile TV is television service delivered to subscribers via mobile telecommunications networks to mobile devices such as cell phones, MP3 players and portable multimedia players (PMPs). If the joint technology is adopted as the industry standard the two companies could expect landfall profits in the mobile device market, which is expected to reach sales of 155 million units by 2012.

Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Thomson and Micronas Multimedia had been competing with each other until recently to have their respective technologies become the industry standard in the North American market. Now that they have joined hands, Samsung and LG have paved the way for outdistancing Thomson and Micronas, industry insiders said.

Their joint effort is expected to combine LG's technology, called the mobile pedestrian handheld (MPH), and Samsung's advanced-vestigial sideband (A-VSB). The mobile TV technology will make it possible to use frequencies of digital terrestrial broadcasters, minimizing investment costs. "We will step up our efforts to provide a technology that will benefit both consumers and broadcasters," Samsung's Park said.

Samsung and LG plan to forward their proposal to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), an international group that develops technology standards for digital TVs that are used in North America. The ATSC's U.S. office is slated to pick a mobile TV standard for the U.S. in the first half of 2009.

The U.S. National Association of Broadcasters estimates that the mobile TV market will reach sales of 130 million units of mobile phones and 25 million units of other mobile devices by 2012.

(englishnews@chosun.com )