Originally scheduled for June 2018, the Malaysian government will finally switch off the national analogue TV transmission later this year. According to Gerard Lim, Chief Digital Officer of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission during the myFreeview media briefing earlier today, the analogue switch off (ASO) will be done in a progressive manner.
Instead of simultaneous switch off, the ASO will take place in specific areas first before it is done at other states and regions. Gerard has also pointed out that the ASO will start from June onwards until the latter part of Q3 2019.
However, the exact dates are still being finalized and will be announced very soon. Despite that, he has stressed that the switch off will no longer be postponed anymore which is why the regulatory body is urging consumers to migrate to the myFreeview digital TV broadcast right away, either via a dedicated DVB-T2 tuner such as the MYTV decoders or TVs with a built-in digital TV tuner.
Aside from delivering better broadcast quality and opening up new opportunities for several industries such as e-commerce and content creation, the move to digital TV broadcast would also allow the government to reuse the spectrum that was previously utilized by analogue broadcast. This would enable the rollout of new services and technologies such as the 5G network which has attracted a high level of interest from the government.
