China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has started discussions with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on the relevant standards and issues related to IPTV development.

It is expected that policies for IPTV will be loosened in 2006.

Currently, China's telecom operators, including China Telecom and China Netcom, are busy organizing bids for IPTV projects.

China's delay in formulating IPTV standard has become the biggest bottleneck for IPTV to grow in the country.

Analysts in local media say that SARFT may try to keep the network resources in balance between it and the telecom industry by limiting the number of IPTV licenses.