DTT (Digital terrestrial television) Log

[ARGENTINA] The new TDA in motion

According to Wikipedia in its last update dated exactly one week ago, on September 15, the Advisory Council of the "open digital television" (TDA) service is currently in charge of the National Secretariat of Media and Public Communication, according to to Decree 50/2019. But nothing that is reported there seems to be up to date.

One searches for TDA on the web and only historical information appears since 1998 and then since approximately 2009 , when the Terrestrial Digital Television service was launched, also known as Open Digital Television (TDA), an acronym that also includes the free satellite services provided by the satellite platform of the state company ARSAT. And everything is quite confusing and full of misunderstandings , and not at all available to anyone who is not an expert in digital technologies.

Once this prevention has been established, the truth is that the TDA is not only constituted by what is produced and disseminated by the platforms of the national State, but also by what corresponds to all licensees that broadcast digitally, privately for or without profit, or state (provincial, university, etc.). A complex universe that allows, in terms of media, simplifications such as that of the Online Politics portal that this weekend made a display on the matter, under a provocative title: "The Government relaunches the TDA and analyzes the return of free football."

Obviously, the announcement of a supposed round of Fútbol para Todos, which was an emblematic popular television service during the CFK governments, is, as they say vulgarly, "per codere". Because although it is not a disposable idea, the presidential announcement of the Plan Connect 2020-2023 last week goes much further and is aimed at strengthening the national communications structure, in order to improve and universalize access to services and connections from broadband for the entire population of the country .

In fact, the President's presentation underlined the construction of a third Argentine telecommunications satellite, which will be called Arsat SG1 , as well as the expansion of the fiber optic network, the strengthening of the TDA and some other, complex essential modernizations. And all with a planned investment of almost 38,000 million pesos.

This column, which has insisted so much on the matter, cannot but celebrate these decisions, because as we have been arguing, the service of the TDA is today fundamental for democracy . And it is that with the communication concentration that the macrista government consolidated since December 2015, a democratic, pluralist and truthful communication policy like the one that a society like ours needs today is materially impossible.

That is why we must applaud this presidential decision , which is aimed at repairing the informative democracy that Argentina does not have today and whose structure - so damaged - advises and requires federalizing communications. In this sense, this decision to have a third national satellite, whose development was slowed down by macrism, will not only repower the great alternative and free digital TV system that this country requires, but will also ensure high-quality connectivity for around one million compatriots living in rural areas . The service is expected to start operating in 2023, at the same time that the Federal Fiber Optic Network will be repowered to cover practically the entire country.

As we have already pointed out in this column, the recovery of ADD is urgent, which is free and which, fundamentally for that reason, must be replaced urgently. This implies restoring and updating around a hundred transmission stations that are in the 23 Argentine provinces and that were practically abandoned in the last four years. Incidentally, the quality of image and sound will be improved and it is expected that the repowered system will reach some 10 million homes throughout the country, currently and according to estimates it reaches only 2.5 million homes.

The importance of TDA, as we have been underlining and insisting for some time, lies fundamentally in the fact that it is the great resource that the State has to counteract the disastrous influence of the television monopoly of pretend , which has caused so much damage and continues to cause daily , and hour by hour, to democracy and social peace.

A truthful communication policy with a national and popular sense is a necessity and an urgency for a society like ours, subjected to the perverse dictatorship of political lies.

Source: www.pagina12.com.ar/293476-la-nueva-tda-en-marcha?fbclid=IwAR2id87ELi3cLgyn3y0YOBHuA1IWgpr1k5R43M1wSSR3Kv6okvUQP-ctXH8