Mexico will be the first to say goodbye to analogue TV; after several delays due to lack of digital coverage, the country has finally rescheduled the switch-off for the end of 2015.
Mexico will be followed by Uruguay, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, which will stop analogue broadcasting over the next year, Ecuador (2017), Brazil (2018), Colombia and Argentina (2019), and Chile and Venezuela (2020). Paraguay (2022) and Cuba (2024) will be the last to perform an analogue switch-off.
According to the report, most countries will restructure their spectrum in order to leave the 700Mhz band for LTE networks deployment, as mobile connections are in great demand in the region due to difficulties receiving high-speed terrestrial connectivity.
Regarding standards, only Colombia and Panama have chosen the European version, DVB-T, while the Brazilian-Japanese standard, ISDB-T, has been selected by 13 countries. The American ATSC standard will be used in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and Cuba has chosen the Chinese standard, DTMB, as China is supplying the island with its digital TV technology.