Climate change boosts up digital transition in the Philippines

The incorporation of an emergency warning system was the deciding factor in the Philippines’ selection of Japan’s ISDB-T as its new terrestrial broadcasting system.

Announcing the decision at the country’s Digital TV Summit, the Department of Information and Communications Technology cited 2013’s Typhoon Yolanda and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake later that same year, as reasons why a faster information distribution system was needed. Both disasters claimed many hundred lives.

The Emergency Warning Broadcast System (EWBS) complements the efforts of the authorities by allowing users to receive early warnings and real time information during earthquakes, typhoons, and other calamities.

The Philippines introduced analogue TV in 1953 using the US NTSC system and has maintained the same system ever since.