Introduction

Purpose of Report

Throughout the World, countries are in various stages of switching over from analog to digital terrestrial broadcasting. The digital systems utilized in different parts of the world are described in ITU-R Recommendations BS.1114-5 (for sound) and ITU-R BT.1306-3 (for television).

This Report attempts to provide an overview of the digital switch-over situation world-wide and will be updated regularly.

In 2006, the ITU's Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) comprising 120 Administrations in Region 1 (except Mongolia) and Iran from Region 3, adopted a treaty Agreement (GE06 Agreement) that includes a frequency Plan for the digital sound and television broadcasting service. The Plan was developed based upon the digital sound T-DAB system and the digital television DVB-T system. This is a long-term Plan which is based on a mask concept and defined protection and interference criteria that would allow for further evolution of this Plan.¹

General

The process of migration, or "Switchover" from analogue to digital techniques can take many routes, each with its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of rapidity, the players involved, and the degree of government intervention. Often influenced by the local broadcasting legacy, each country will follow its own switchover path. Switchover implies more than a technical migration as the role of TV and radio in modern societies is economic, social and political. Appendix 1 Part 2 (Case studies) is intended to demonstrate the existing and planned transition from analogue to digital systems in different countries.

Switchover affects all segments in the broadcasting value-chain: from content production through transmission to reception, all of which require technical upgrading to support digital broadcasts. The serious challenge is to replace or upgrade the huge installed base of analogue receivers. This can be done with integrated digital receivers, or ‘set-top-boxes' taking care to modify such things as antennas, dishes, cabling, etc. as appropriate.

While market forces and consumer demand will eventually drive the digitalisation of broadcasting it is important to remember that the change has been facilitated by technical development. In broadcasting, as in many other industries, changes are brought about as much, if not more, through the emergence and exploitation of new technologies than by a perceived business demand. With this in mind it is worth first briefly examining the benefits that digitisation might offer.

¹ Art. 5.1.3 of GE06 Agreement:

"5.1.3 A digital entry in the Plan may also be notified with characteristics different from those appearing in the Plan, for transmissions in the broadcasting service or in other primary terrestrial services operating in conformity with the Radio Regulations, provided that the peak power density in any 4 kHz of the above-mentioned notified assignments shall not exceed the spectral power density in the same 4 kHz of the digital entry in the Plan. Such use shall not claim more protection than that afforded to the above-mentioned digital entry."