Dutch cable operator Delta, serving the province of Zeeland, is to switch off all analogue television and radio during 2018.
The cabler is launching a massive “Allemaal Digitaal” (Everyone digital) campaign to help customers switch to all digital reception. According to the company, already more than 80% of its customer base is now using a Delta smart card to watch digital television.
Delta will use the freed capacity to offer 1 Gbps broadband internet access across the entire network, using DOCSIS 3.1. The cabler says that its internet data usafe is growing 40% year-on-year and that the capacity now used for analogue television is needed for the increased internet traffic to websites such as Netflix, Youtube, NPO Gemist and RTL XL.
At the same time, Delta plans to terminate radio distribution of all FM radio stations with a decreasing usage of radio on the network. During the past year, FM usage has gone down 16% to 33% of all subscribers.
Delta serves over 140,000 households and businesses mainly in the Dutch province of Zeeland, and is the second largest cable operator in the country, after Ziggo. Delta’s hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network of over 6,000 km passes 192,000 homes, which corresponds to ~90% of the total number of homes in Zeeland.
Delta is the second cable operator in The Netherlands that decides to switch off its analogue TV distribution. CAIWay, Holland’s fourth largest cable operator, completely switched off its analogue bouquet on Sunday, October 10, 2010.
