UTStarcom to Deliver First Mobile TV System in China's Hainan Province

UTStarcom, Inc., a major player in IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and international service and support, has been selected as the only technology supplier for the first mobile television system across Hainan province, driven by China Telecom's Hainan branch.

According to UTStarcom (News - Alert) officials this is the first large-scale mobile TV system in China to adopt the company’s end-to-end RollingStream platform.

The deployment is scheduled to go live on May 17, 2009, as an extension of the existing Internet Protocol Television (IPTV (News - Alert)) service that Hainan Telecom and UTStarcom have been delivering since 2006.

Company officials say the system will support unicast, wireless application protocol (WAP) and two modes of access through the mobile phone WAP browser and mobile phone end-user applications.

Officials say that rich media services will enable all live television broadcast channels to be accessed via time-shift capabilities for up to 72 hours after the original airing. The system will also support online viewing and download, on-demand video and music, billboards, search capabilities and video blogs.

"UTStarcom has long been a leading innovator in Asia's multimedia communications landscape, especially in the IPTV market,” said Robert Wu, CEO of UTStarcom China, in a statement. “We were the first to deploy a digital signage solution using an IPTV platform and were the first to deliver the Olympic Games via IPTV to China viewers.”

Wu said that the company’s RollingStream IPTV platform was created to support a more extensive three-screen video delivery strategy beyond just the television. Mobile TV is the next natural progression in the execution of the long-term video plans, he pointed out.

As part of the pact, UTStarcom will continue to provide Hainan Telecom with full-system engineering for both the IPTV and Mobile TV services to ensure a consistent user experience across all video channels and to maximize video quality in accordance with current bandwidth capabilities.

The highly-scalable Mobile TV solution encompasses professional code conversion tools, a sophisticated operation support system and an advanced content storage and distribution platform.