By the end of 2010 digital television will become available to 80% of the Belarusians. It will be made available in line with the plan of measures developed by the Information Technologies and Communications Ministry to expedite the introduction of digital television in Belarus, Information Technologies and Communications Minister Nikolai Pantelei said during an online conference hosted by the BelTA website on November 21. There are plans to introduce digital television at all TV and radio broadcasting stations of the country to ensure maximum coverage by 2015. After that analogue broadcasting will be discontinued. The plan also provides for working out a programme for providing the nation with Belarus-made adapters designed to receive digital TV signals. Enterprises of the Industry Ministry are supposed to start manufacturing the devices in Q1 2009. Apart from that, there are foreign-made adapters available on the market. Taking into account the heavy competition, the growing market capacity and hence production capacity, prices for the adapters are supposed to shrink to levels affordable to the population, remarked Nikolai Pantelei. BelTA reported earlier, at present digital TV broadcasting is available in almost 40% of the country. Digital television has been available in Minsk since 2005 when a transmitter was installed in Kolodishchi. There are five digital TV channels and one digital radio channel. In September 2007 a radio and television retransmitter was commissioned in the town of Sharkovshchina (the Vitebsk oblast). Last year also saw digital broadcasts made available in the town of Trokeniki (the Grodno oblast) and Mogilev. In April 2008 a transmitter was installed in the town of Kopyl (the Minsk region). At present digital broadcasts are available in the town of Orsha (the Vitebsk oblast), the village of Zashchebye (the Gomel oblast) and adjacent areas. By the end of the year the option will be made available in Gomel, Brest, Staryye Dorogi and Berezino of the Minsk oblast, the village of Luki (the Korelichi region, the Grodno oblast). БЕЛТА
Written by belta.by
