The Commission today welcomed the Colombian national regulator's (the National Commission for Television CNTV) selection the European Digital Video Broadcasting standard (DVB-T) for the country's digital terrestrial TV.

The terrestrial DVB standard, DVB-T, has already been adopted in Europe and by over 120 countries in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America. The decision by the Colombian regulator will confirm the EU's commitment to working with Colombia and the rest of Latin America to better exploit the potential of ICT and media. Other Latin American countries (such as Peru, Venezuela, Argentina or Chile) are expected to decide soon about their digital TV standard. In August 2007, Uruguay was the first Latin American country to choose to use the DVB family of standards for its digital TV needs.

Colombian authorities estimate that investment of €145 million will be triggered by the upgrade of the public and private networks. In addition, it will create a new market for household equipment, as it is expected that 25 % of Colombians will already receive digital broadcasts by 2010.

Background information

DVB-T is an open standard developed by the DVB Consortium with the participation of over 280 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulatory bodies and others in over 35 countries around the world. It is part of a family of interoperable standards that are the basis of digital broadcasting around the world, together with, notably, DVB-S for digital satellite TV, DVB-C for digital cable TV and DVB-H for mobile TV. EU-funded research has been instrumental in developing and validating the DVB standards.

With Colombia following the paths of Uruguay, DVB-T is becoming a reference standard in Latin America in the same vein as the global GSM standard for mobile communications.

In July 2007, the Commission encouraged EU Member States and industry to use another DVB-family standard, DVB-H, as the single European standard for terrestrial mobile TV. DVB-H is being deployed in a steadily growing number of countries in Europe (it is currently between trials and commercial launches in 16 EU countries), and in other parts of the world such as in Morocco, Indonesia, Russia and Singapore. In March 2008, the European Commission added DVB-H into the EU List of Standards, which serves as a basis for encouraging the harmonised provision of telecommunications across the EU.