Irelands official DTT trial ends

Eamon Ryan, the Communications Minister for Ireland, has formally announced the end of Irelands official DTT trial.
” We have reached the end of the beginning of the digital terrestrial television process. Now we move to national rollout,” said Ryan.
The trial officially ended on August 1st but from August 4th transmission provider RTE Network limited will provide a new DTT network to test and develop services.
The trial in Dublin and County Louth has been in operation since August 2006 and involved 1000 homes. The results of the trial show that 82% of those involved would recommend DTT to a friend and 84% were satisfied with the overall service.
As reported previously MPEG-4, H.264 Audio Visual Coding is to be used for the new service.
Recent press reports have suggested that the launch of the new service from the Pay-TV licence winner Boxer is expected to be delayed until September 2009 so that the free-to-air multiplex from public service broadcaster RTE can be launched at the same time.
Main source: Broadband TV News
Item added: 4th August 2008