First Arab meeting to coordinate terrestrial television channels

The migration to digital TV is the focus of the first Arab meeting in Dubai to coordinate terrestrial channels in the region.

The meeting is being hosted by the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Arab League and the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU). 

The forum focuses on the migration to digital TV and the need for regional coordination and cooperation to make it happen. It also discusses the technical and regulatory challenges of this migration in the Arab region in relation to the cost, deployment, return of investment, and radio frequency planning and sharing spectrum.

“There are certain issues that we must not lose sight of and those include the band allocated for analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting which will no longer be protected after mid of June 17, 2015, and the reassignment of the 700 & 800MHz bands that reduce the number of channels allocated for digital terrestrial TV broadcast,” H E Majed Al Mesmar, deputy general manager of the telecommunications sector in TRA, told delegates on the opening day of the meeting.

“Agreeing on a unified digital TV receiver specification for the Arab region and the consensus among Arab countries to find and allocate the required additional channels that compensate the lost ones due to the reassignments of 700 & 800MHz are also required to tackle these issues,” he added.