For those of us who live in the developed world and are accustomed to a cornucopia of digital TV riches, it’s easy to assume that everyone has easy access to digital TV delivered over multiple platforms and to all our TVs and gadgets.
The truth is not all parts of the world have the digital abundance found in the developed world. There are hundreds of millions of people who rely on analog broadcasts for their entertainment, news, and information programming. In fact, less than one-third of the world’s nations are transmitting digital terrestrial TV (DTT) signals today.
Source: DTC
Those countries that have not completed their DTT systems can benefit from the experience of countries that have built their systems. Unfortunately, a wholesale transfer of the building blueprint from one country to less developed parts of the world won’t work because infrastructure, political, economic and policy conditions can be vastly different from region to region.
That’s why the banding together to create pan-regional groups when planning and building a DTT system is a trend that should be adopted in many places yet to make the transition. Europe’s adoption of a common transmission standard (DVB-T) helped to build certain operational, equipment and human capital efficiencies as it has rolled out its DTT infrastructure over the last 12 years. Southern Africa recently made a similar call when a regional task force, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) which consists of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, chose the DVB-T2 standard for pending roll outs of DTT systems (South Africa’s system is already in operation).
It’s time for other parts of the world to make similar moves as smaller (in land mass and/or population) countries can benefit greatly from common platforms that present economies of scale. Central America and the Caribbean are perfect examples of the next regions that could benefit from pan-regional plans. Getting individual countries to agree on common standards and technical specifications is a daunting task, but not an unprecedented one.
