News from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is that China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting will soon be put into commercial use on a trial basis in the three Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and seven programs will be available free of charge during the trial use period.
A USB dongle, a CMMB terminal which will come out later this week, can be used on a laptop computer for users to watch the seven free CMMB programs. According to SARFT's plan, more CMMB terminal products such as MP4, mobile phones, SD card receivers and bluetooth receivers will come out before the Beijing Olympic Games.
The network construction of CMMB has been completed in eight Chinese cities. Beijing and Shenzhen are the two cities where people can first watch the CMMB programs and they are followed by Shanghai where the trial commercial use of CMMB is scheduled to be launched at the end of this month.
China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting is the Chinese broadcasting industry's mobile phone television standard. At the end of 2007, SARFT initiated bidding for the construction of the CMMB network for which it received CNY150 million in special funds from China's Ministry of Finance. This was the second round of bidding for CMMB equipment for SARFT and covered transmitters, testing devices, CMMB portable terminals and other supporting systems.