Watch the World Cup on your mobile

Germans will broadcast television images of the 2006 World Cup to mobile phones using technology developed in Korea.

According to Daeje Chin, the South Korean Minister for Information and Communications, people living in Munich will be able to watch TV on their mobile phones as soon as January next year.

The move comes as the Bavarian local government has signed a deal with Korean company TU to broadcast football matches over digital media broadcasting (DMB) satellites.

"They will have it working at the beginning of next year so they can show the World Cup on mobile phones," said Chin. "This is important for us because it's a Korean mobile phone standard that is being accepted in another country."

TU is set to pilot DMB satellites next month in Korea and will make the service publicly available in September. Chin said some companies in the UK are also looking at deploying DMB but didn't say when any service might roll out.

Yu-Kil Yang, of the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency, said: "The satellites are being serviced from July and we'll then begin ground broadcasting. It will come as a service in September. Some people already have DMB terminals, which Samsung and LG are providing next month."

Yang said the UK could have DMB on mobile phones in a "short time".