Digital TV coverage faces delay

“We are, however, trying our best to work closely with all providers of digital TV [transmission] networks and related parties, such as facility providers, namely CAT Telecom and TOT, in order to solve these problems and reach 90-per-cent coverage by May next year,” Supinya Klangnarong, a member of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, said yesterday.
Supinya, who also serves as chairwoman of an NBTC subcommittee overseeing consumer-rights protection, said the problem was that there were some issues around the use of TOT’s facilities for digital TV transmission as relay sites. In addition, TOT’s existing facilities that are currently being used for telecommunication service do not support broadcasting equipment.
If the national providers of digital TV transmission networks – including Thai Public Broadcasting Service, the Army and MCOT – want to use the facilities managed by TOT, Supinya said they might jointly invest in erecting new facilities on the same ground as TOT’s telecom sites.
“It appears that TOT agreed with this option after Wednesday’s discussion with the state enterprise and those digital TV [transmission] network providers,” she said.
However, the investment required for such facilities by the transmission-network operators could be high and might cause a heavy financial burden for broadcasters.
Within the third year of the digital-TV transition plan, each transmission-network provider must be able to cover at least 90 per cent of the country’s 22.3 million households by next May. To reach certain areas, they will need to have 170 relay sites in place.
In the second year of plan, all key transmission-network providers succeeded in bringing the four public-service and 24 commercial digital-TV channels to 80 per cent of the country’s households as planned.
At this stage, terrestrial-based digital TV is being transmitted through 39 main broadcasting towers.
Although digital TV seems to be reaching the main areas of the Kingdom, the number of viewers watching digital television programmes is still limited.
To encourage consumers to familiarise themselves with this new system, yesterday the NBTC signed a memorandum of understanding with three universities in Roi Et, Chiang Mai and Surat Thani to promote public awareness about the process of switching off the analog system in some areas of those provinces.
Under this MoU, all parties will conduct research on the impact on viewers from this process and help them migrate smoothly from analog to digital.
The NBTC expects to end Thai PBS’s analog service in three districts of Chiang Mai (Chaiya Prakan, Fang and Mae Ai), Surat Thani’s Koh Samui, and Roi Et province.
The end of this old service will take place between December and January, and this is expected to affect about 500,000 households.