DVB-T trial for Malaysia

21 August 2006

The website of the ABU reports that the Malaysian government will launch a six month DVB-T trial in September. The Deputy Information Minister said that the government is keen for the country to benefit from maximising scarce spectrum resources both to provide a range of information to citizens and also to open up new areas for economic development. A report compiled from the trial will be submitted to the national Digital Task Force which will later make a decision on adopting the DVB-T standard.

The trial will be conducted in Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding areas. Two thousand households have been selected for the pilot, with half of them given DVB-T set-top boxes. It is unclear how the other half of the selected group will participate in the trial. Participants of the trial will get to see three Radio Television Malaysia’s channels on digital transmission from 7pm to midnight daily, local time. Two of those are existing analogue channels, while the third is a new channel.