The Coming Convergence of China's Television, Mobile, and Broadband Networks

Hong Kong.
The second presenter in this session at The Internet Turning 40 is Huang Sheng-min, who will present in Chinese with a translator; his focus is on the developing Chinese media and telecommunication industry, with a growing integration of telecommunication and television networks.

There have been significant struggles around this over the past ten years in China: both the broadcasting and telecommunication industries in China are still immature, and both were affected by a directive which required both networks to merge into one to avoid the construction of duplicate physical networks - this was suspended, however, and both industries pursued their own developments, separately. Over the past year, then, the broadcasting industry pursued a digitalisation programme, while the telecommunications industry moved from 2G to 3G. In 2010, however the integration idea was put back on the table.

Telecommunication industries have experienced a decline in the value of their voice and broadband services; they are now pursuing a mediatisation strategy. Broadcasting networks have a low ARPU value, and advertising income acts as a bottleneck; their aimis to pursue the development of an interactive and integrated service. For the Internet industry, video is an inevitable direction, but this is driven by users more than commercial interests.

Traditional business, represented by voice services, is in trouble, then; users are already prepared for new media services. There is now a two-pronged approach combining IPTV (television, serving family needs) and 3G mobile telephony (mobile phones, serving individual needs). There is a move from transmission channels to content production, integration, and regulation, in hopes that this will solve the difficult situation. This may not match the interests of the other industries, however.

What is required now is media-led thinking, focussing on the Internet as a platform and distributed through broadcasting and telecommunications networks. This must combine both industry and state initiatives rather than relying only on state directives or industry developments.

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