Government Urgeds Reversal to Analog in Tijuana Sandra Dibble - The San Diego Union-Tribune
go to original May 31, 2013

EFE Update: Mexico's telecommunications regulator has postponed the "phasing-out" of analogue television in Tijuana, the Communications and Transport Secretariat said. The secretariat said the Cofetel regulatory agency agreed at a meeting Friday to push back its plans to switch off the analogue signals until July 18 - after the July 7 state election in Baja California - at the federal government's request.

TIJUANA — This city’s tumultuous transition to digital television took a new turn Thursday, as Mexico’s federal government urged a reversal and return to analog broadcasts through Baja California’s July 7 elections.

The switch has left thousands of households without television reception, and prompted demands that Mexico’s independent Federal Telecommunications Commission postpone efforts to convert the country to digital broadcasts.

“This is not the most opportune moment for the analog shutdown,” Mexico’s Communications and Transportation Secretary, Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, said after flying in to Tijuana to personally deliver news of the petition. “There should be no shutdown during electoral periods.”

On Tuesday, Tijuana became the first city in Mexico — and the first in Latin America — to end analog broadcasting and adopt entirely digital transmissions. But the measure has left many residents with blank television screens, as they lack converter boxes that would allow them to receive digital signals.

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