After 14 years of delay, during which several dates were postponed, at the end of this Wednesday the Dominican Republic the journey of the television analogous to the Digital Terrestrial Television (TTD), a transition that will put the country at the level of its peers in Latin America.
The first stage will include Greater Santo Domingo, the entire eastern region and some municipalities of San Cristóbal, where 450,000 converter boxes are already distributed, delivered to the same number of homes with televisions that do not reproduce the signal transmitted by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSCacronym in English), which has its origin in the United States, a country that began its migration in 1996.
The second phase will cover the region of Cibao and the third the Southuntil completing, in a period of one year, the installation of 940,000 converters, one per family.
In total, the ATSC The signal of 25 channels will be decoded, 21 national in scope and three regional in nature, explained Guido Gómez Mazara, president of the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel).
The project involves an investment of more than 20 million dollars, which has already been disbursed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), whose previous study showed that the country would need that amount of decoders.
Your advantages
According to the Indotelunlike the analogue, as advantages, the TTD will have a coded signal in a binary way, which will facilitate better quality in image and sound. Likewise, the chains of television They will be able to offer more dynamic programming, with up to two different contents.
When the television digital is a fact, Dominican Republic will get out of the gap and join its peers Latin America with this vanguard. Argentina, Mexico Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, among others, had the lead. Unlike ATSCsome of these nations use Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB), developed in Japan.
450
One thousand decoder boxes have been delivered by Indotel to overcome the analog blackout.
The television stations
For months, the regulatory body and company executives television stations have discussed the transition process, so that there is no interference and the frequencies. In resolution 121-21, the Indotel establishes the parameters that the channels must follow, which must comply with the standards, such as adapting their transmissions to the system ATSC.
The television stations They may not exceed the assigned geographic space, not transmit digitally once the deadline has expired, and not cause interference.
The TV is still active
Despite the rise of mobile devicescomprising 3.2 million (87.5%) of the homes of the country, the television maintains its niche, which covers 2.8 million homesequivalent to 75.5% of the populationaccording to the 10th National Population Census, of the National Statistics Office (ONE), prepared in 2022.
Of that universe, Gómez Mazara points out 61% of the homes with TV includes the sectors with the best income in the country.
Gómez Mazara differs from those who call it an “analog blackout”, as he prefers to call it “digital activation”, because homes with traditional televisions will continue to receive the signal without difficulty until they receive the decoder “box”.
Homes that have contracted a satellite dish cable service will not need the equipment.
This Wednesday, at 5:00 in the afternoon, President Luis Abinader, together with the Board of Directors of Indotel and representatives of companies in the sector, will lead the launch event at the institution’s headquarters, where they will detail what the transition will be like. .
In his first administration, the head of state issued several decrees in this regard. 539-20, “declares of high national interest the essential right of universal access to the latest generation broadband Internet and the productive use of information and communication technologies (ICT).”
