Go invests heavily in its digital terrestrial TV service
It was a long hot summer for the technical staff of Go Plus who were busy expanding and upgrading the company's digital terrestrial TV (DTTV) network."Following a lot of planning and coordination, everything came to place on the second week of August...
It was a long hot summer for the technical staff of Go Plus who were busy expanding and upgrading the company's digital terrestrial TV (DTTV) network.
"Following a lot of planning and coordination, everything came to place on the second week of August when Portomaso transmission equipment was upgraded, the tower at Naxxar extended and new transmission equipment installed at the Naxxar radio station," confirmed Joseph Bugeja, technical director at Go. "Consequently a new head end was built at the newly refurbished premises at the Maghtab earth station. This includes new signal reception facilities, a new encoding setup and a-state-of -the art monitoring and control station," he said.
The project will allow Go to offer TV service to over 95 per cent of households in the Maltese territory and also caters for further picture compression so that additional TV channels may be added to the channel line-up.
Gozo is also benefiting from better reception with the installation of a repeater at Nadur. More repeaters are also being planned for Malta.
Coverage has been improved. In some cases one gets the signal from an indoor antenna, making the service easily portable to another residence or even a boat.
"We now have state-of-the-art digital equipment to maximise bandwidth," explained Ing. Bugeja. "We are the second or third in the world to have such a new system, provided by Tandberg, which is future proof and ready-to-handle mobile TV and IPTV-broadcast-quality TV channels over internet."
Tandberg, a subsidiary of Ericsson, has provided Go Plus with a wide range of advanced digital video technologies enabling it to roll out live and on-demand digital TV services.
The digital TV transmission project was carried out in collaboration with international firm Electrosys, which was selected on grounds of the company's excellent track record in supplying solutions around the world adapted to the local environment.
The current set-up can cater for more TV channels, but such expansion is also linked to the frequencies allocation issue. The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) has assigned frequencies to Go according to the re-allocation plan agreed internationally, last year. The company says it is conscious that the MCA is doing its best to coordinate the frequencies for more and better access to such frequencies. Go's takeover of DTTV operator Multiplus earlier this year, apart from being a strategic decision in itself so that Go can start offering quad-play, has been also linked to the frequencies issue.
Go is actively seeking a grant of new frequencies for a better launch in the near future of high-definition (HD) TV channels, which require three to five times more bandwidth (capacity) than the current digital channels.
While we could see Go launch HD in the coming months, interactive facilities such as pay-tv over DTTV seem to be a harder nut to crack as the technology only allows one-way communication. The TV viewer cannot communicate back with the same equipment but needs a telephone line or internet access.
"Interactivity with DTTV was not very successful abroad," admits Go's technical director. "However we are looking into it as part of the bundling of our services." Maltacom, the precursor to Go, had started testing IPTV over ADSL some years ago but the service was not commercially launched. With ADSL speed increasing considerably over the years and the new investment in hardware over summer, Go Plus is still keeping the technology on the back burner.
While the fine tuning of the new equipment is still going on, Go Plus is working on improving the experience with a better electronic programme guide (EPG). It is also experimenting with secondary languages on channels where this is available and transmitting radio stations to complement the TV package.
Go Plus is active on the content side, and in the coming weeks and months will be enhancing its line up of channels with additional stations and programming. The company says it has made considerable inroads in the local pay TV market, especially due to its value-for-money packages and the wide choice of local and international TV stations available. Malta won't have another DTTV provider competing with Go Plus any sooner as no internationally coordinated spectrum is currently available. In its recently-launched consultation document "Making Digital Broadcasting Accessible to All", the MCA admitted "additional frequencies should become available subject to successful finalisation of the coordination process currently under way with neighbouring countries.
"Any allocation of frequencies for a second network operator can only be made when the final number of frequencies that are available to Malta, for digital terrestrial broadcasting purposes, is known."
The document speaks about the need of three digital frequencies set aside for Maltese general interest channels that must be carried by the DTTV operators because of their relevance to Maltese society.
"It is envisaged that the obligation will be imposed on Go," the document proposes.
The consultation, led by the MCA and the Malta Broadcasting Authority, will run until December 7.
"Following a lot of planning and coordination, everything came to place on the second week of August when Portomaso transmission equipment was upgraded, the tower at Naxxar extended and new transmission equipment installed at the Naxxar radio station," confirmed Joseph Bugeja, technical director at Go. "Consequently a new head end was built at the newly refurbished premises at the Maghtab earth station. This includes new signal reception facilities, a new encoding setup and a-state-of -the art monitoring and control station," he said.
The project will allow Go to offer TV service to over 95 per cent of households in the Maltese territory and also caters for further picture compression so that additional TV channels may be added to the channel line-up.
Gozo is also benefiting from better reception with the installation of a repeater at Nadur. More repeaters are also being planned for Malta.
Coverage has been improved. In some cases one gets the signal from an indoor antenna, making the service easily portable to another residence or even a boat.
"We now have state-of-the-art digital equipment to maximise bandwidth," explained Ing. Bugeja. "We are the second or third in the world to have such a new system, provided by Tandberg, which is future proof and ready-to-handle mobile TV and IPTV-broadcast-quality TV channels over internet."
Tandberg, a subsidiary of Ericsson, has provided Go Plus with a wide range of advanced digital video technologies enabling it to roll out live and on-demand digital TV services.
The digital TV transmission project was carried out in collaboration with international firm Electrosys, which was selected on grounds of the company's excellent track record in supplying solutions around the world adapted to the local environment.
The current set-up can cater for more TV channels, but such expansion is also linked to the frequencies allocation issue. The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) has assigned frequencies to Go according to the re-allocation plan agreed internationally, last year. The company says it is conscious that the MCA is doing its best to coordinate the frequencies for more and better access to such frequencies. Go's takeover of DTTV operator Multiplus earlier this year, apart from being a strategic decision in itself so that Go can start offering quad-play, has been also linked to the frequencies issue.
Go is actively seeking a grant of new frequencies for a better launch in the near future of high-definition (HD) TV channels, which require three to five times more bandwidth (capacity) than the current digital channels.
While we could see Go launch HD in the coming months, interactive facilities such as pay-tv over DTTV seem to be a harder nut to crack as the technology only allows one-way communication. The TV viewer cannot communicate back with the same equipment but needs a telephone line or internet access.
"Interactivity with DTTV was not very successful abroad," admits Go's technical director. "However we are looking into it as part of the bundling of our services." Maltacom, the precursor to Go, had started testing IPTV over ADSL some years ago but the service was not commercially launched. With ADSL speed increasing considerably over the years and the new investment in hardware over summer, Go Plus is still keeping the technology on the back burner.
While the fine tuning of the new equipment is still going on, Go Plus is working on improving the experience with a better electronic programme guide (EPG). It is also experimenting with secondary languages on channels where this is available and transmitting radio stations to complement the TV package.
Go Plus is active on the content side, and in the coming weeks and months will be enhancing its line up of channels with additional stations and programming. The company says it has made considerable inroads in the local pay TV market, especially due to its value-for-money packages and the wide choice of local and international TV stations available. Malta won't have another DTTV provider competing with Go Plus any sooner as no internationally coordinated spectrum is currently available. In its recently-launched consultation document "Making Digital Broadcasting Accessible to All", the MCA admitted "additional frequencies should become available subject to successful finalisation of the coordination process currently under way with neighbouring countries.
"Any allocation of frequencies for a second network operator can only be made when the final number of frequencies that are available to Malta, for digital terrestrial broadcasting purposes, is known."
The document speaks about the need of three digital frequencies set aside for Maltese general interest channels that must be carried by the DTTV operators because of their relevance to Maltese society.
"It is envisaged that the obligation will be imposed on Go," the document proposes.
The consultation, led by the MCA and the Malta Broadcasting Authority, will run until December 7.