On May 12, the President of the Republic of Panama, Martin Torrijos Espino, signed a national executive decree adopting DVB-T as Panama´s digital terrestrial television standard, the DVB Project announced.
This announcement joins previous decisions made by Uruguay (2007) and Colombia (2008), with all three countries choosing DVB-T.
The decision to adopt DVB-T in Panama was taken after in-depth analysis and rigorous testing of all the world’s digital television standards. A National Technical Committee created in 2007, consisting of 25 national experts from diverse sectors, conducted studies, analyses and tests related to the technical, social, economic and regulatory aspects of existing standards. Its aim was to promote and protect the investments made in the sector, fair competition and improvement of the quality of each service.
Manuel Troitiño, President of the Technical Committee, said in a statement: “This decision demonstrates that Panama wants to join the wider broadcast community in the world, whilst maintaining flexibility and the ability to optimise broadcasting options for Panama. DVB is rather superior to other standards in this respect. Panama´s National Public Services Authority has been mandated to make the necessary arrangements to migrate to digital terrestrial television in less than 18 months”.
