Japan to Offer Terrestrial DMB Services for Mobile Phones
September 30, 2005
Japanese broadcasters will be offering terrestrial digital broadcasting services for mobile phone users starting April 1, 2006, covering Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and their surrounding areas as well as 13 other prefectures in Japan. NHK and private broadcasters will handle the service in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and their surroundings, while the rest will initially receive programs from NHK only. The service, dubbed wan-segu (One-segment Broadcasting), offers images with high quality and stability, even during commuting. NTT DoCoMo plans to release handsets capable of receiving the service by April 1, 2006. KDDI and Vodafone, already offering handsets with analog broadcast reception, intend to roll out similar handsets for this service in early 2006.
According to projections by Fuji Chimera, the market scale of 3G handsets with T-DMB support will hit 100 billion Yen in 2005, 350 billion Yen in 2006, 600 billion Yen in 2007, and 1.1 trillion Yen in 2008.