The ten member countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are setting guidelines and a list of criteria to encourage adoption of DTV in the region by 2008, but have not decided when the countries will shut down analog TV. The ASEAN Digital Broadcasting Cooperation Initiative is being spearheaded by Singapore and Brunei.

Dr. Tan Chin Nam, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts said, “By adopting DVB-T as a standard, I think we will remove uncertainty in the market. From the manufacturers’ point of view, it will be easier to come up with a quantity of equipment which will be able to address the market needs in a very cost-effective manner.”

ASEAN sees digital broadcasting opening up new opportunities for industry and viewers beyond off-air terrestrial DTV. These include HD delivery through IPTV and video-on-demand mobile DTV services. See Channel NewsAsia article “ASEAN to define guidelines for adoption of digital TV by 2008” by Wong Siew Ying for additional information.