HD services are to be made available over the terrestrial platform in Finland following an agreement between DNA, already the country’s largest cable operator, and Ericsson. Around 60% of Finland will be covered by the new service during 2011, though it is expected that larger cities will be in service before the end of 2010.
Pekka Väisänen, Vice president, Consumer Business, at DNA says: “In a recent survey we found that an impressive majority of the Finnish population, 69 percent, want to watch movies in high definition and in the age group 15-19 the number is even higher; 89 percent. There’s no doubt that HDTV is the future.”
Ericsson is the prime contractor, providing network rollout and systems integration services as well as maintenance and support services. The technology provided includes products from the Ericsson TV portfolio, including the MPEG-4 AVC HD head-end solution, along with third party products and technology for DVB-T2 HDTV broadcasting.
