Portuguese DTT network to switch to MFN
May 22, 2013
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Portugal’s National Communications Authority (Anacom) has published the final decision on the evolution of the DTT network, with the goal of improving the quality of service.
The decision implements a proposal that was submitted to public consultation in March this year. The regulator thus confirms a change of the DTT network configuration, which will become multifrequency, consisting of small single frequency networks (MFN to SFN). This solution should improve the quality of service, since “it allows a full mitigation of the impacts caused by atmospheric phenomena that significantly change propagation conditions,” explains Anacom.
The development will be phased, allowing the integration into the DTT network of the transmitters that had been installed by PT Comunicações within the temporary network operator licence that was allocated precisely to avoid the identified problems.
The decision takes effect from May 16th, when it ended the validity of the temporary licence network that had been attributed to PT and had been renewed in November 2012.
Anacom had already acknowledged that the implementation of DTT “has revealed that certain situations have had an impact on the quality level of reception of the DTT signal,” while the latest figures from consumers association Deco showed that 62 per cent of users had complaints about the quality of the signal.