India: 2017 for switchover?
Rose Major ©RapidTVNews | 31-01-2010
India’s broadcasting minister has offered up 2017 as a possible date for the country to have completed the switch to digital broadcasting.
Quoted by The Hindu’s Business Line publication, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ambika Soni, told the Broadcasting Engineering Society’s Expo that “while India as yet has not declared any sunset date for complete migration, it is now being increasingly felt that by 2017, we should also aim for a complete switchover.”
Meanwhile, a report last week also claimed that the government had decided to allow operators to decide which technology they would use for mobile TV services. State broadcaster Doordashan is currently the only mobile TV operator in India, with a DVB-H platform. Doordashan will reportedly by allowed to share its infrastructure with private operators if terms are agreed.
Mobile TV licences will be given out state by state, following a bidding process for which no date has yet been set. Each player will get 8MHz spectrum in the 585MHz and 806MHz frequency bands.
© Rapid TV News 2010
