Many have gotten rid of those old analog television sets and replaced them with the flat screen HD TV's. While Belizeans have made the switch individually, there hasn't been a national transition. The broadcast standard stipulated by the Belize Broadcasting Authority is still analog. Nonetheless, representatives from Belize's telecommunications sector were still very much involved in this year's 4th Regional Coordination meeting. It was held at the Biltmore and this is the first time Belize is hosting the meeting. We stopped by to find out more.
Ilham Ghazi, Head of Broadcasting Division, International Telecom. Union
"At the moment most of the countries in the world switched to the digital terrestrial television instead of the analog television so the analog television is what we see today with the analog transmissions and the transition to digital it is because of the new technologies that allows to have more performing programs, efficiency of frequency spectrums but also a very high quality of image and sound for example we hear about HD TV and also Ultra HD now."
"This kind of event or the frequency we are having here is the platform to gather all the neighboring countries and to have them around the table discussing and coordinating the frequency so that whenever any country from Central America or the Caribbean is ready to transit to digital television they have already frequencies without no interference."
Courtney Weatherburne, reporter
"So in terms of the Belize perspective now, where are we in terms of this transition from analog to digital?"
Justin Barrow, Director of Telecommunications, PUC
"Market forces aren't demanding to switch right now. We have a lot of spectrum here in Belize and we don't have a lot of demand on it so from that standpoint there is no impetus like on Channel 7 to switch. We are not forcing it but eventually that is what is going to happen when the old technology gets phased out and  the new ones come in, that is what is going to eventually happen anyway. We are not forcing it or anything like that. We are just seeing what our neighbors are doing in the Caribbean and in Central America. Some of them have demand for spectrum so they are definitely going to be switching over."
It is a 4 day meeting. 84% of European countries, the US and Canada have fully transitioned to digital. A few Caribbean countries are in the process of considering this analog to digital transition.
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