Even worse, none of the U. S. broadcasters has plans to fund a subsidized set-top box. One scenario has Quiero TV launching a service in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. These markets have up to 25 percent Spanish-speaking populations. The Univision and Telemundo networks, and their affiliates, could assign their two digital terrestrial signals in each city as starter stations. Then, Quiero TV only would need to negotiate carriage rights on a few more local digital terrestrial transmitters, and it then could duplicate the multiplex it already broadcasts successfully in Spain.
Bits are bits, no matter how they get to the receiver.
Most of Quiero TV's existing software, applications and conditional access systems still would be able to operate. The Southwestern United States would simply be a market extension of Quiero TV's service from Spain. They would need to find a major station group owner to sponsor them, but I imagine Sinclair would jump at the chance to help launch a DVB-T service in the United States. Congress and the FCC might have to tweak some rules to permit multiple local digital TV stations to be used as a unified multiplex, but that just amounts to paper work. It's in the public interest to get something going on these DTV transmitters.