China to leapfrog digital TV standards

Chinese tech leaders have watched the tentative evolution of Western digital television standards and have apparently decided to leapfrog the current specs in favor of a new Chinese version. Promoters of both the US and European standard have invested heavily in promotional efforts, hoping to capture the burgeoning Chinese market.

China's Tsinghua University is cooperating with Chinese-owned Legend Silicon, located in Silicon Valley, to create a Chinese DTV transmission standard that combines orthogonal frequency-division multiplex and spread-spectrum technologies. The standard could represent an improvement on both Western specs. Based on telecommunications technologies, the DTV technology would let China use DTV spectrum for standard and high-definition TV broadcasting as well as data and cellular phone applications.

In a related story, a joint report by the US State and Commerce departments says that China's Ministry of Information Industry is making access to 3G mobile telecommunications technologies a condition for 2G phone access to the Chinese market. China's mobile phone market has exceeded 100 percent growth for the last decade with only 4.7 percent of 1.2 billion people using now.

To read the DTV story, go to eetimes.com. The wireless story is at eetimes.com.