Nelson de Jesus Arroyo, President of the Board of Directors of the  Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel), reported that the Dominican telecommunications regulator will remain focused on the analog blackout’s implementation in the Caribbean country, which is scheduled for 2022 This way, a USD 30 million investment in STBs for DTT on the island is planned.

‘We are working to achieve the analog blackout in the Dominican Republic in September 2022, so that all channels are able to work with the digital system’, Arroyo reported during a recent interview he gave to Multimedios del Caribe. The executive also reported that two other issues on which the entity he leads will focus will be the implementation of the 5G system, and the national broadband plan in the Dominican Republic. Likewise, as reported in mid-February from the Observatorio Latinoamericano de Regulacion de Medios y Convergencia (Observacom), the executive informed during an interview on TV that the Dominican Government plans to deliver free DTT STBs to the population with low economic resources. ‘The Government will donate equipment so that each TV can work with digital technology, and this service is not a privilege only for some people’, he reported.

The initiative announced in the Dominican Republic is added to the progress that Cuba is reporting in the analog blackout’s implementation. Days ago, several specialized websites reported that the country’s Communications Minister, Jose Luis Perdomo Dilella, informed that the distribution of STBs for digital TV will be  strengthened from the second half of the year, especially in areas where greater progress is expected in the analog to digital TV migration process.