Update on DVB-T2 planning

Professor Irini Reljin, Assistant Minister of Telecommunications in Serbia, described plans for her country’s transition to DVB-T2 broadcasting at the recent DVBWorld 2011 conference in Nice.
Despite initially deciding on the use of DVB-T the additional benefits provided by DVB-T2 now mean that the country will immediately adopt DVB-T2 without transitioning through DVB-T.
As well as the increased bit rate available Prof. Reljin illustrated that by using DVB-T2 for the Single Frequency Network (SFN), the extended guard interval possible, will mean that only 12 transmitter sites would be needed instead of the 30 described in RRC06 for DVB-T.
The parameters adopted for the DVB-T2 system will be 256QAM, 32k FFT, guard interval of 1/8 (448us) and a code rate of ¾. These parameters will allow a net bit rate of 40.38 Mbps and a supported distance between SFN transmitters of 134.4km she said.
Initially two multiplexes are planned for Serbia. Mux 1 will have nationwide programme coverage (95%) as well as some regional programming and Mux 2 will be used for local programmes.
The government regulations indicate that 7 programmes will be available nationwide, 30 for use regionally and 94 for us in local areas.
Analogue switch off is planned for 2012.
Source: DVBWorld 2011
Item added: 14th March 2011