🗼 Cyprus Migrates Terrestrial TV Network to Hellas Sat and DVB-T2 Standard
The Cypriot media market is undergoing its most significant terrestrial television infrastructure upgrade in a decade and a half. On July 1, operations officially ceased for Velister, the legacy platform responsible for broadcasting private digital channels for the past 16 years.
It has been replaced by a new operator—a consortium led by Hellas Sat—which has executed a complete technological migration of the national digital terrestrial television (DTT) network, simultaneously upgrading transmission from the legacy DVB-T standard to the more advanced DVB-T2.
The migration was originally scheduled for May 1 of this year, but the Ministry of Digital Policy extended the deadline to grant viewers and market stakeholders additional preparation time. The overhaul introduces fundamental structural changes: replacing obsolete transmission hardware has significantly enhanced the network’s energy efficiency and optimized the utilization of scarce spectrum resources.
According to Christodoulos Protopapas, CEO of Hellas Sat, the decommissioning of Velister’s transmitters proceeded seamlessly. The new operator is already testing high-definition (HD) broadcasts and is laying the groundwork to introduce over-the-air 4K UHD transmissions.
For end consumers, this large-scale reform necessitates a technical transition. The migration exclusively impacts citizens who receive free-to-air commercial television channels via conventional indoor or rooftop UHF antennas. Subscribers of cable networks, IPTV platforms, and satellite TV will experience no disruption. Owners of modern television sets (manufactured after 2017) simply need to perform an automatic channel rescan on the new frequencies. Conversely, users with older television sets will be required to purchase an external DVB-T2 set-top box, with local market prices ranging from €20 to €50. Notably, there is no need to replace the antenna itself or realign its direction, as the transmitter broadcast sites remain unchanged.
The Cypriot case is highly illustrative for the international sector: digital terrestrial television remains profoundly relevant but demands deep technological transformation to successfully compete against streaming services by guaranteeing superior picture and sound quality.
Source: Alpha News
