Peru. The end of transmissions of television signals with analog technology, called "analog blackout", in Metropolitan Lima, will not have a negative impact on most of the population because, on average, families in the capital have a television enabled to capture the digital terrestrial television (DTT) signal, reported Japanese expert Nobuo Okabe.
Engineer Okabe, who has just completed his two-year work at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, MTC, --during which time he provided advice on the implementation of DTT and the EWBS early warning system-- pointed out that in 2016 95% of the televisions sold could receive the DTT signal that uses ISDB-T technology, a figure that has been increasing in the last five years.
According to the Master Plan for the Implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television, this signal will be transmitted in Lima from 2021, while in the following years the analog blackout will occur in the rest of the country.
Another factor that favors a non-traumatic change of television signal is that 80% of the Peruvian population consumes television through the cable signal. In addition, he pointed out that analog televisions will be able to receive the digital signal with a decoder or with UHF antennas. The Japanese expert provided these statements during the presentation of the final report of his work in these two years in Peru.
The ceremony was attended by the Deputy Minister of Communications, Carlos Valdez Velásquez López, the Resident Representative of JICA Peru, Masayuki Eguchi (Japan); the Director of Digital Broadcasting Technology, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, Hiroyuki Ogawa; the general director of Authorizations in Telecommunications, Luis Fernando Castellanos, the technical manager of IRTP, César Otero; and the executive director of INICTEL-UNI, José Oliden.
Challenges and cooperation
Okabe recommended strengthening the diffusion of the advantages of DTT: better quality, better image, better sound, more programs transmitted over the same spectrum, being able to watch TV on mobile devices and receive warning signals in cases of emergency.
The expert stressed that he hopes that Peru will support the introduction of DTT in 13 other Latin American countries that have adopted ISDB-T technology. "There is a lot of interest in the region to be trained in Spanish and to know the Peruvian experience for the elaboration and execution of the Master Plan for the Implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television," he said.
