CAMBODIA has adopted South Korean technology as the domestic standard for broadcasting, covering the spectrum from television to mobile phones, according to Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith.

Terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting was agreed on as Cambodia’s standard in an agreement signed by the Khieu Kanharith and Korea Communications Commission vice chairwoman Lee Kyung-ja in Phnom Penh this week.

“We adopted T-DMB as a platform for mobile television,” the minister wrote on Wednesday. “The Ministry of Information will be monitoring this technology.”

Cambodia plans to commercially offer T-DMB service by the end of the year, after trialling the service for much of 2010 at the National Television of Cambodia station, according to a translated KCC press release.

During the October 2009 visit of Korean President Lee Myung-bak to Cambodia, Khieu Kanharith and Korean officials signed a deal to test T-DMB at the Ministry of Information-run National Television of Cambodia.

Lee Myung-bak was formerly an economic advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen. Khieu Kanharith did not return a request for comment yesterday on whether rival mobile digital television technologies – such as the European Union’s “preferred technology” DVB-H – would be permitted to operate in Cambodia.

South Korea-based phone manufacturer LG electronics launched the first-ever DMB-compliant mobile handset in 2004, according to a Cambodian representative of the firm. However, the firm did not return request for comment yesterday on whether it had DMB compliant handsets available for purchase.