Skip to main content

France Leading European Digital TV Policies

France has set a new benchmark for European digital television policy, according to "Digital TV Transition: Europe Watches France's Mandates As Terrestrial HDTV Arrives," the latest research from the Strategy Analytics.

France's new "TV of the Future" law has taken an important step towards high definition television (HDTV) on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform by allocating capacity for HD channels and mandating HD tuners in HD-Ready TV sets.

These decisions will have ramifications for other countries in Europe, which will watch these developments with interest. There will also be important lessons from the French approach to licensing HD channels that takes place over the next few months.

According to this report, the decisions made in France will put increased pressure on other European countries to accelerate their own policies towards HD on DTT platforms.

"Most other European countries are still at the discussion stage regarding the introduction of HDTV on their DTT platforms," notes David Mercer, Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics.

"France has taken an important lead by allocating the capacity for HDTV and ensuring that future HDTVs will be able to receive these new channels. The industry will be satisfied that France has set clear policy goals on these important issues."

Also according to the report, France's plan to switch off analogue television broadcasts by November 30, 2011 remains an ambitious goal, given much of the country's still heavy dependence on those signals.

But the country's aggressive top-down approach to policy setting gives much-needed clarity to industry decision makers, which will allow technology vendors and service providers to plan with confidence.

Popular posts from this blog

How WLAN Transforms Industrial Automation

The industrial sector is on the eve of a wireless transformation, driven by an urgent demand for greater network capacity, reliability, and deterministic performance. Historically, manufacturers and mission-critical operations have relied on wired networks — favoring their predictability — because spectrum congestion in legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands limited confidence in wireless for operational technology (OT) environments. However, with the introduction and rapid adoption of the 6GHz spectrum, compounded by significant advances in Wi-Fi standards, industrial facilities are now poised to embrace wireless LANs as the backbone for automation and digital innovation. Industrial WLAN Market Development Recent research from ABI Research forecasts that over 70 percent of industrial-grade wireless LAN access points (WLAN APs) shipped in 2030 will support the 6GHz band. This is a leap from 2 percent in 2023, highlighting a rapid and profound technological shift. The market for ruggedized indust...