18.10.2006
Russia has to transfer to digital television by 2015, acting director of the department on the state policy in information and telecom technologies at the Information Technology and Communications Ministry, Yevgeniy Vasilyev, said at a Tuesday [17 October] roundtable at the State Duma.
Otherwise, we will have big problems, he said.
Analogue television should be retained as the main way of population access to information in the transitional period, he said.
Digital television will be free, and no subscription fees will be levied, State Secretary and Deputy Culture and Mass Communications Minister Pavel Pozhigailo said.
Russians should also gain for free, the digital television decoders, he said.
The government will own frequencies for digital television, and a unified state operator of television and radio broadcast will be formed, Pozhigailo said.
Roundtable participants said that constitutional rights of all citizens to the access to information must be ensured, information security must be preserved, and 100 per cent of the Russian territory must have an access to TV and radio programmes.
