Oriental Pearl Group of Shanghai is expected to lead off CMMB (China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting) services in China by commencing commercial operations on January 1, 2009, Shanghai Evening Post reported on December 4. As per the tariff program, the CMMB service subscriber will be charged a monthly fee of 12 RMB (US$1.74; US$1=6.88 RMB), of which Oriental Pearl Group will receive 2 RMB (US$0.29) and the SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) 10 RMB (US$1.45).

Meanwhile, the SARFT has floated a tender for one million CMMB terminal devices, including CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), and TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous CDMA) mobile phones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), in-vehicle GPS (Global Positioning System) devices, MP4 players, as well as USB (Universal Serial Bus) and SD (Secure Digital) interface devices for notebook PCs. The tender results are slated for announcement by year-end 2008, and 100,000 terminal devices will be allotted for Shanghai.