Mobile operator Orange and a number of UK-based broadcast and multimedia companies this week forged an agreement to work with UK and Korean companies on a "comparative UK mobile multimedia trial".

The exercise will be based on the UK's existing DAB digital radio infrastructure to deliver digital radio and TV services to mobile phones.

The participants have agreed in principle to progress with a comparative technology trial of DAB-based multimedia technologies in London using L-Band, and potentially the Band III spectrum.

A trial will commence in April 2006, looking specifically at comparing the technological aspects of the different applications of the World DAB Eureka 147 standard, the Korean T-DMB application and the enhanced packet IP-based variant implemented in the UK by BT Livetime.

The trial will have a closed engineering user group. Trial participants from both countries include: Orange, BT Livetime, Arqiva, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, SMG Television, Virgin Radio, GCap Media, Emap, Celador, Frontier Silicon, ETRI, Samsung, LG, Perstel, OnTimeTek and Pixtree.

During the trial select users will be able to receive DAB digital radio and video content on their mobile phone.