RTVE and Abertis Telecom sign agreement to supply 100% of Spanish homes with DTT

Thursday, December 4th, 2008
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  • Existing Spanish Television (TVE) signals will be reused thanks to adaptations to the system made by Abertis
  • This system will be available to national broadcasters and will also allow regional broadcasters to be integrated into the platform
  • The analogue switch-off will be completed by 3 April 2010
  • RTVE (Spanish Radio and Television) Corporate Director Jaime Gaiteiro and Abertis Telecom’s Business Director, Oriol Sitjá, have signed an agreement that will complete DTT coverage of TVE signals to the entire national population

MADRID — Televisión Española and Abertis Telecom this morning signed an agreement to ensure that 100% of the Spanish population can receive DTT programmes broadcast by TVE: terrestrial coverage will reach 98.5% of the population whilst the remaining 1.5% will receive signals via satellite.

The solution provided by Abertis Telecom reuses existing TVE signals in the satellite that have, in the past, been used to send signals to terrestrial broadcast centres. For this purpose, Abertis Telecom will adapt the conditional-access system so as to leave it open and accessible to the industry for the development of the necessary decoders.

Furthermore, the technological system used will be available for use by other national DTT broadcasters. Therefore, national broadcasters shall be able to use the system, given that, as in the case of TVE, existing DTT satellite broadcast signals will be reused. In addition, the Abertis Telecom system allows regional Spanish programmes to be integrated into the platform.

The system of providing DTT coverage using satellite technology will be available to people living in areas inaccessible to DTT as soon as the terrestrial system has been rolled out and prior to the analogue switch-off.