Copyright 2005 Kyodo News Service
Japan Economic Newswire
July 21, 2005 Thursday
From Lexis Nexis
Japan plans to test live-broadcast of terrestrial digital television programs on the Internet via fiber-optic cable networks starting this fall, government officials said Thursday.
If successful, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications hopes to introduce the service in 2006.
The re-broadcasting service would particularly benefit TV viewers living in areas that cannot be reached by terrestrial digital TV signals.
As Japan’s nationwide development of infrastructure for terrestrial digital TV broadcasting services is expected to cost massive amounts money and time, some regions could be left out of TV broadcasting services when the present analog broadcasting system is terminated in 2011.
The ministry hopes to take advantage of the Internet, fiber-optic cable networks and satellite broadcasting to cover such regions with digital broadcasting services.
Recasting via the Internet of terrestrial digital TV programming is expected to spur the integration of broadcasting and telecommunications services, giving a boost to Internet-based broadcasting.
TV broadcasters are concerned such a service could have problems with copyright protection and regional broadcasting licenses.
