Dutch telecoms operator VodafoneZiggo is now preparing for analogue switch-off, the company’s CEO Jeroen Hoencamp told newspaper NRC.
Of VodafoneZiggo’s four million cable customers, there are still between 300,000 and 400,000 households that only watch analogue television. The percentages differ per region, per city. “So we can introduce digitisation in phases over the next two or three years,” said Hoencamp.
“This step is inevitable. It is already happening in Germany. We don’t have a specific date yet, but in the end we go completely digital.
“We must be careful about this. If you look purely economically, we would have done this a long time ago: without analogue TV, you get a simpler, and cleaner network with more capacity. However, thousands of customers still use analogue TV or analogue radio with which they are satisfied. It is up to me to take them with me.”
Analogue switch-off is needed to allow for the introduction of the new Docsis 3.1 broadband access standard, as well as delivery of more digital TV channels, including possibly UHD channels.
