TU Media Corp., a Korean consortium for satellite-based mobile broadcasting service is in distute with Toshiba Corp. over royalty on the Japanese firm's technology.

Toshiba, having the biggest stake in Japan's satellite-based mobile TV service consortium has, in mid May 2004, sent an official document to the Telecommunications Technology Association, a Korean business lobby, requesting the Korean consortium pay it a royalty of 2 percent per terminal sold, regardless of its type, The Japanese consortium, Mobile Broading Corp., is TU Media's Japanese counterpart, and Toshiba is the chief provider of core technologies for the service.

The satellite service gives mobile phone users an access to high-quality video, per-view programming and audio channels.

The Korean consortium, led by the country's top mobile carrier, S.K. Telecom Co., wants to arrange a royalty system based on the amount of terminal sales, saying that any royalty plan has not been determined and Toshiba has not discussed the issue with the Japanese consortium.

In Japan, Mobile Broadcasting will launch its service in July as scheduled, but in Korea, regulatory hurdles are expected to delay the start of the service's full operation by up to one month past the original plan for July. TU was initially capitalized at 121.6 billion won (U$ 103.8 million).