As the race to establish a dominant mobile television standard hots up, in Asia it’s deployments rather than lobbying or operator trials increasingly setting the pace.  

This week a consortium was announced in Indonesia to build the first Digital Media Broadcast (DMB) network outside Japan and South Korea. Indonesian electronic retailer, PT Agis, Toshiba of Japan (who invented the standard) and mobile and IPTV systems integrator BNS of Hong Kong will team up to launch a satellite broadcast mobile TV service early next year.

Other details are still to emerge such as which mobile operators and content providers are onside. What’s interesting is an electronic retailer and distributor is in there and will operate the service.

Who controls the point of sale in the emerging mobile TV value-chain is a sensitive issue. Usually mobile and Pay TV operators will slog it out. A nationwide retailer should also help get devices quickly into the hands of consumers spread across  Indonesia’s 17,500 islands.

So far Korea and Japan have been doing the running on DMB. Most attention is focused on TU Media’s Satellite–DMB service in Korea, not so much because of its 1.3 million subscribers, but that they are paying US$12 a month to watch over an hour of content a day.

That’s a more impressive figure when you consider Koreans pay just $6 a month for cable TV.  They also have more than 60 devices to choose from, well ahead of Nokia and its DVB-H handsets.

But the one market that could really alter the balance in these emerging standards is of course China with its 500 million mobile users.

Next year is launch date for satellite mobile TV in time for the Beijing Olympics. With issues on standards, spectrum and business models still to be ironed out, few analysts or industry observers are willing to place bets on what will happen.

Yet EchoStar Satellite confidently predict its S-band satellite is ready to beam mobile video across China early next year. At this stage it seems some flavor of DMB technology will get the nod. 

According to Dave Shull, Asia Pacific MD of Echostar  the focus on standards is a bit of a red herring speaking at a recent CASBAA Conference. “Standards do not really matter as they are all more or less the same technically, the handset price matters much more than the technology.”

And of course if any market has the size and production capacity to lower the price of technology hardware, it is China.

Meanwhile Nokia’s DVB-H standard is also making a move as this week the European Commission said it will favor the standard and look at ways to mandate its use.

Everyone points out the EU used the same approach to successfully mandate GSM.  But surely the lessons from W-CDMA were less salutary?

I’d pay more attention to commercial service launches, especially in Asia, rather than dictates from EU Commissioners.