THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) told the joint group composed of the European Union (EU) delegation to the Philippines and representatives of Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) to make formal a request to extend the deadline of the review process for re-evaluating the standards for the digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcast service in the country.
“They made a presentation yesterday and asked for an extension. We told them that the TWG [technical working group] is now working on the review and told them to formalize their request for an extension. We will act on it once we got [the] formal request,” said NTC commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba in a phone interview yesterday.
The EU group asked for a sound, transparent review process, allowing all stakeholders to ask questions and to receive detailed information on all standards available in the market, including DVB-T2, an updated and modernized version of DVB.
This, after the EU expressed its surprise that the TWG had not taken the initiative of organizing any hearing with DVB representatives. The Europeans suggested that broadcasters should be given the opportunity to try DVB-T2 and compare its performance with the Japanese standard.
The EU also asked the NTC and the TWG to consider recent compelling developments on this issue, with the rollout of DVB-T2 in Europe, Africa and Asia. During CommunicAsia/ BroadcastAsia last week, the Singaporean government announced that it will start rolling out DVB-T2 before the end of the year.
A source from the TWG said industry players are still keen on adapting Japanese standard which is the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB).
“The set-top box for the new version of the European standard costs $45 to $50 each. Also, they won’t offer other perks unlike the Japanese who are interested in manufacturing the boxes here and even assisting our government TV stations. Bottomline is, the set top boxes if we were to adapt the ISDB platform, is very much cheaper at less than $15 each,” said the source.
The TWG, which is led by NTC deputy commissioner Jose Martinez, is set to announce soon the results of the review. But the NTC will not be able to meet the end-June target in issuing the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the transition to digital broadcasting.
In his order for the TWG to re-evaluate the standards for the DTT broadcast service, Cordoba said: “In light of the recent developments in digital television broadcasting, a technical committee is hereby created for the purpose of re-evaluating the standards for DTT. The committee shall be tasked to look into the latest developments in the DTT service, to include the emergence of 2nd generation DTT standards and an update on the prevailing market price of DTT set-top boxes, among others.”
The committee was ordered to submit a written report of its findings on or before June 30.
The NTC initially targeted to release the IRRs this month. Without the said rules, industry players cannot fully start the shift to digital TV.
