Thailand's IEC has signed an agreement with Chinese and US partners to deploy a mobile video broadcasting network throughout Thailand.
IEC has teamed up with the China Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and vendors Telairity and Digital Horizon to develop a network based on the China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) standard, with rollout scheduled to begin in March.
CMMB is similar to Europe’s DVB-H digital TV standard, but is reckoned to be more cost effective. Handset vendors including Motorola, Nokia and Samsung, and car makers Audi and Mercedes-Benz have launched products using the standard over the past two years.
CBC already operates a network based on the digital TV standard in China, while IEC launched Thailand's first mobile digital broadcasting system in 2010 in partnership with Thai state broadcaster MCOT.
Telairity, a video encoding solution provider, will act as systems integrator for the mobile project while broadcasting deployment company Digital Horizon will implement the nationwide broadcast system.