The Department of Electronic Communications is reactivating the previous digital terrestrial television platform, Velister, from today, running it in parallel with the new platform for a further three-month period, the department announced.
The move follows a wave of problems reported by households since the full switch to the new DVB-T2 standard, which replaced the older DVB-T system used by Velister. Many consumers completed the required settings changes or installed decoders but still could not tune into the new frequencies. Hellas Sat, which operates the new platform, has attributed most of the problems to old antenna installations, faulty cabling and unsuitable decoders.
The additional three months gives residents who continue to face problems more time to make the necessary changes, whether retuning their television, buying a compatible decoder or adjusting their home reception equipment, according to the department. Citizens can tune their receivers to the channels they received up to June 30 on the previous platform. New decoders and televisions are able to receive the previous platform’s signal, the department said, adding that the renewed parallel operation is intended solely to make the transition to the new platform smoother.
Hellas Sat CEO Christodoulos Protopapas told philenews that problems were to be expected once the previous system was switched off, noting that this had also happened in other countries. He said the affected households represented a small percentage of the total and that many people had not dealt with their issues early enough.
Protopapas said Cyprus was obliged to adopt DVB-T2 because it delivers a high-definition picture and uses the broadcasting spectrum more efficiently. The extra data now carried through cables creates problems in older installations, he said, particularly where cabling or signal amplifiers are outdated. “People installed their decoder, put up their antennas and set up their television,” he said of what most households had done.
Hellas Sat has teams available to support installers, who can contact the company directly for help, Protopapas said. The fault, he stressed, lies not with Hellas Sat but with viewers’ antennas. He pointed to cases where consumers had bought poor-quality decoders unable to receive DVB-T2, and others where the television’s country setting needed changing to activate the new system. He suggested those who can afford it consider a new television or a good-quality decoder. Asked about cases where television and programmes cut out after the new system was activated, he said the cause was either poor cabling or a faulty decoder.
Andronikos Kakkouras, Deputy Director of the Department of Electronic Communications, told philenews that the licence for the new network was granted to Hellas Sat after the previous licence expired and Velister showed no interest in continuing operations. Without the change, he said, the outdated network would gradually have made television viewing impossible.
Kakkouras acknowledged that many people are struggling with the issue. Citizens had a three-month transition period to fix problems in their homes, he said, adding that this was not an excuse but that many had left it until the last day. Hellas Sat’s call centre logged 1,600 calls the day before, he said. The problem stems from television programmes being broadcast in high definition, which makes reception more sensitive for televisions and decoders, he explained, and some people continued to face problems due to faults in their homes’ internal cabling despite retuning.
Asked whether decoders themselves had caused problems, Kakkouras said there were cases where the system only started working once the decoder was replaced. He said some installers had mistakenly tuned households to Velister’s old frequencies, leaving their televisions not working. “We expected there would be problems because we are a last-minute people,” he said.
The Hellas Sat service centre offers further information and support on 22 000 737.
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