Friday 19th April 2024
In a major decision towards digitization, the Government of Nepal urged its populace using analogue cable television to switch to the new digital system.
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) Nepal said this in on November 16, 2017 making the rule mandatory as per the government’s earlier plan, starting from November 15, 2017.
“We had given enough time to cable service providers and the customers to migrate to the digital television system as it is a gradual process. However, the government will now monitor cable service providers from November 16, 2017 to check whether the cable viewers have switched to digital format or not,” informed Prem Kumar Shrestha, Acting Secretary of MoIC.
According to Prem Kumar, the government will initiate necessary action on cable operators not digitizing the TV broadcasting.
The government has set mid-May deadline for cable TV operators in rural municipalities to adopt digital system.
The Government of Nepal’s decision to digitise TV broadcasting is in line with the 2017 deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) asking all its member countries to go digital.
The government has set the mid of May 2018 as the deadline for all cable TV operators in rural municipalities of the country to adopt digital system.
“We have been appealing to customers to adopt the digital cable broadcasting system as soon as possible. However, customers are still in the wait-and-see mode,” says Sudhir Parajuli, President of the Federation of Nepal Cable Television Association.
Nepal has over 3.2 million cable subscribers as per the estimates, of which, only 20 percent have switched to the digital TV broadcasting so far, say the cable service providers.
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