CMMB CHINA
CMMB ( China Multimedia Broadcasting) Continues to Grow
July 2011
As per data released in Asia Media Summit workshops 2011, and available on the ITU Website http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/asp/CMS/Events/2011/DigitalBroadcast-May2011/S3_China.pdf the CMMB service continues to grow strongly in China. The CMMB service is primarily used by the China Broadcasting Corporation ( CBC) headquartered at Beijing. The service claims over 10 million subscribers in June 2011 after the commercial launch in 2010 expanded its reach to 320 Cities ( from 150 in 2009 trials). The outdoor coverage is now claimed at 95% with indoor coverage being in 80% of the areas served. In March 2011, the subscriber numbers reported were 8 Million.
The following are the highlights of the CMMB coverage:
Signal Transmitter coverage: 337 cities
SFN: 186 cities
Transmitters: 953
High‐power sites:907, Low power sites :2044
The service is largely based on terrestrial transmitters and repeaters. The CMMB satellite which was to be the key to countrywide delivery has been delayed. Costing $2 Billion and with a launch cost of $100 Million, the satellite for CMMB was designed to cover the country using terrestrial repeaters and gap fillers.
A complete range of user devices ranging from USB Dongles to Personal Media Players have been released. However the channel fare remains limited to Some CCTV radio and radio channels.
SARFT CHINA PROJECTS 500 MILLION CMMB USERS BY 2012
State Administration for Radio Films and Television( China) has projected over 500 million users of CMMB services by 2012. This follows its highly successful rollout of Mobile TV Services through CMMB terrestrial brodcasting through 2008 and 2009.Commencing wth the summer Olympics in 2008, the rollout already covers over 150 prefecture level urban areas in China and is expected to provide countrywide coverage by end of 2009.By all accounts, this represents one of the fastest rollout of Mobile TV which the world has seen, in the largest mobile market of the World with over 650 million users.