The billion-dollar business is in its infancy but the technology that will bring super sharp images to miniature moving screens is up and running.

"A TV on your palm is now reality," said Ahn Chieteuk of South Korea's state-financed Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute.

Last month the government handed out licences to six operators for land-based Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) technology, which Ahn's institute helped develop. Three companies will start broadcasts from May.

Through DMB, users can tune into regular TV programming or watch content-on-demand through portable terminals that include mobile telephone handsets and mini-TVs installed in their cars.

Various data services based on two-way communication capability are also available.

A viewer watching a movie on his mobile phone can check the background of one of the movie's stars by clicking on a certain part of the screen.

While watching a cooking programme, a user can store the recipe in a computer or get a print-out, according to an official of Samsung Electronics, which is developing DMB handsets.

When other software applications are in place, DMB will also enable users to pay for purchases while watching a TV home shopping programme on mobile handsets.

DMB handsets which are to go on sale at around 800,000 won (790 dollars) will be in common use in less than three years, the official said, considering that it took camera-equipped mobiles less than four years to dominate the market here.

"South Korea has the world's top IT infrastructure and is an ideal test bed (for new IT products)," Chin Dae-Je, minister of information and communication, said at a seminar last month, noting that South Korea had already become the world's first developer of mobile Internet technology.

According to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, the DMB industry will generate some 12 billion dollars in services and equipment production over the coming years to 2010 while creating 87,000 new jobs during the same period.

Land-based DMB services - in which South Korea leads the way - are expected to attract more than 10 million customers by the year 2010 while satellite-based services are expected to secure 4.3 million by that time.

By the year 2012, the global market for DMB phones alone is expected to be three billion dollars, according to the institute.

Chin said that by developing land-based or terrestrial DMB, or T-DMB, South Korea had taken the lead in digital multimedia broadcasting technology.

The three South Korean TV networks launching services in May plan to offer land-based DMB services, a world first.

Since last year Japan has been offering services using its own satellite-based DMB technology, but South Korean consumers will be the first to have access to terrestrial links.

"Terrestrial DMB is more adaptable to two-way communications compared with satellite-based DMB," the institute's Ahn told AFP.

A satellite-based DMB service provider backed by South Korea's top mobile carrier, SK Telecom Co., will also began operating in May.

Terrestrial DMB involves fewer start-up costs as it uses existing on-air broadcasting facilities. It also requires fewer "gap fillers" or relaying stations needed to help bring signals to remote areas.

In South Korea land-based DMB operators will provide receivers with free service, while those using satellite-based technology will charge some 15 dollars for entry and 10 dollars of viewers' fee per month. Satellite DMB also uses different receivers with special antennas.

South Korea-developed terrestrial DMB was adopted last December as an international standard at the World Digital Audio Broadcasting Forum, involving key players in the industry.

Ahn said he was certain that the same format would be selected soon as a global standard by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute as well.

Samsung Electronics has tied up with a top French broadcasting technology company, VDL, for T-DMB business in France.

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