The Brazilian Government closed a cooperation agreement with Paraguay by means of which Brazil commits itself to providing assistance in all DTT-related implementation aspects in such country. The agreement establishes the encouragement of the creation of a low cost STB productive pole in such Paraguay.
By means of this agreement, Brazil will provide technical training, cooperation among universities, public policy development and financial assistance in the purchase of equipment. Additionally, according to site Paraguay.com, the Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency and the Paraguayan National Telecommunications Commission will cooperate with each other with …

With the construction of the ISDB-T STB prototype, the Venezuelan Government starts its sixth of the seven stages programmed by the National Telecommunications Research and Development Center for such device manufacturing. Before entering the last trial phase, some parts will need to be assembled. Venezuela will start to deploy DTT this year.
Such breakthroughs have been disclosed by the Electronic Communications Division of the aforementioned center. Gerson Castellanos, assigned researcher of this division explained that “breakthroughs have been achieved solidly in the last quarter of 2010, focusing on the development of …

According to the Telecommunications Superintendent, Fabián Jaramillo, two Ecuadorian companies might be interested in producing DTT STBs locally. In that country, there are 3,5 million TV sets that will require such devices. The officer pointed out that STB prices would range from USD 40 to USD 50 for more sophisticated devices and USD 30 for basic ones. Moreover, he did not discard the idea that the Government might grant subsidies to lower income sectors for the acquisition of such devices.
“The national industry is likely to manufacture them“, stated Jaramillo over …

The Colombian National TV Commission Broad of Directors passed the agreement project – released some days ago – by means of which the standard DVB is chosen for DTT. Therefore, the entity formalizes its standard choice after the State Council of such country decided to stop the digital TV implementation given irregularities found in its adoption.
Colombia chose DVB in 2008 over the course of a board meeting at the aforementioned agency. However, the State Council determined that the entity sis not comply with the required procedure for its formalization; so …

The Colombian State Council decided to suspend DTT implementation process in such country as irregularities in the adoption of DVB standard were found out. According to the High Court, the decision of choosing that standard was taken during a board meeting held by the National TV Commission, but its formalization procedure was never carried out thus its provisional suspension. Therefore, Colombia might choose other options such as ISDB-T and ATSC.
According to El Espectador newspaper, the Council accepted the nulity requested by the lawyer Juan Carlos Gómez, who considered that such …

SABS approved set top boxes for digital TV will apparently cost a pretty penny
South Africans can look forward to purchasing expensive set top boxes (STBs) in order to receive digital TV signals.
This is according to Masa Sugano, first secretary of economic and commercial affairs at the embassy of Japan in Pretoria.
Sugano is involved in the battle between ISDB-T and DVB-T to become the South African digital broadcasting standard. Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting – Terrestrial (ISDB-T) is a standard for digital television and radio broadcasting developed in Japan.
DVB-T vs. ISDB-T: The …

During Futurecom 2010, IBM analyzed the potential business opportunities for Digital TV, especially in terms of applications demand. The company presented a controversial proposal, asking for the import of skilled labor to meet demand in a short term.

“TV is counted in the millions, the Internet in the thousands,” said Marco Bravo, director of IBM services, who participated in a panel discussion on digital TV at Futurecom 2010 on Thursday, October 28. Bravo intended to prove that Brazil’s software industry must move toward the development of interactive applications for digital TV …

The Brazilian Government presented a series of investments aimed at different tasks, such as digital TV, which would amount to USD 60 millions, before a group of Uruguayan representatives. The idea is that this initiative, together with Japan’s previous proposals, ends up convincing the Uruguayan Government to replace DVB with ISDB-T. Projects would be presented in Uruguay next November 5th. The final decision would be taken before year end.
According to Convergencia Digital site, the meeting was held in the headquarters of the Development Bank of Brazil. Brazilian companies from eight …

In face of the Government’s recent decision to accelerate Digital TV project, the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Felipe Morandé, stated that if such decision were passed in 2011, DTT coverage might reach the 85% of the country in 2014. Such term is shorter than the initially foreseen by the Government, who had forecasted such coverage for 2015. The analog blackout might take place in 2016. Morandé believes hat the Soccer World Cup in Brazil will foster the purchase of TV sets fitted with ISDB-T tuner. So far, 200,000 Chilean …

In order to co-opt Uruguay into becoming a partner in the Japanese-Brazilian Digital TV system, the Brazilian government announced investments that could reach US$ 60 million in various sectors, some of them not directly related to technology. Brazilian expects that its Latin American neighbors will give up the European standard DVB and move to ISDB-T later this year.
Uruguay’s Vice-Minister of Science and Technology met Brazilian authorities last week at BNDES (Brazilian Social and Economic Development Bank) to discuss financing of Brazilian investments or joint-ventures with Uruguay.
According to Andre Barbosa, Special …