PHL viewers may pay P1,000 per digital box in shift to Japan TV standard

Published November 5, 2013 8:50pm

Filipino viewers will have to shell out nearly P1,000 for set-top boxes in the shift toward digital television using the Japanese Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard from the current analog system in place.

Regulator Natioinal Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued the memorandum circular for “Standard for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Broadcast Service” Tuesday, said Engineer Edgardo Cabarios, NTC Regulations Branch director.

The Philippines is expected to make the switch by 2015

Network giants ABS-CBN Corp., GMA Network Inc. and Intercontinental Broadcasting Corp. were going along with the shift to ISDB-T standard since they have already spent billions of pesos ahead of the actual shift to digital TV.

ABS-CBN spent P2 billion, GMA Network spent almost P1 billion and IBC spent more than P500 million in preparation for the shift. TV5, meanwhile, invested P500 million in the run up to the new standard.

Cabarios said a technical working group will be created in the second week of December to formulate the implementing rules and regulation for the shift that inlcude the actual price of digital set-top boxes.

Cabarios said consumers should not pay more than P1,000 for the set-top boxes for an analog TV to receive digital signal.

He said the IRR the TWG will hammer out will help determine whether the set-top box will have to be subsidized.

President Benigno Aquino III announced last month after meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Brunei that the Philippines was ready to adopt the Japanese digital TV standard.

Digital television, which replaces analog television in use since cathode-ray tube sets in the 1930s, promises better picture and sound quality.

Malacañang tasked the Department of Science and Technology last year to draf a migration plan to heop government decide which standard to use in the shift to digital TV

DOTC's Information and Communications Technology Office determined the Japanese standard is the more appropriate system because Europe's Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial 2 standard has higher modulation and more complicated modulation techniques.

Other countries that have adopted ISDB-T are Brazil, Peru, Chile, Venzuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Paraguay.

NTC was supposed to issue the implementing rules and regulations for digital TV in July 2010 but this was postponed after Malacañang ordered a review.