Digital terrestrial television will broadcast on other waves from Wednesday. Makes room for 5G

The frequency at which digital terrestrial television will be broadcast is changing. Thanks to these changes, it will be possible to switch to the DVB-T2 / HEVC standard and this will help in the development of 5G in Poland.

No more than a few days ago, the Office of Electronic Communications reminded that one of the actions aimed at enabling the construction of the 5th generation network in our country is to free up the frequency bands used so far for another purpose. This applies to digital terrestrial television in the 700 MHz band.

Digital terrestrial television makes room for 5G

According to Sat Kurier , TVP authorities have just announced that tomorrow, i.e. on the night of June 2 to 3, the frequency at which digital terrestrial TV channels are broadcast will be changed. The change at the moment applies to such provinces as:

• West Pomeranian;
• Pomeranian;
• Lesser;
• Lubusz;
• Opole;
• Lower Silesia;
• podkarpackie;
• Silesian.

Polish TV reports that the changes will affect channels such as TVP1 HD, TVP2 HD, TVP3, TVP Info HD, TVP Historia, TVP Sport, TVP Entertainment and TVP ABC. Fortunately, if everything goes according to plan, then the recipients will not even notice or feel these changes:

• MUX 1 - Elbląg (from cards 43 to 27), Koszalin (from 44 to 23), Świnoujście (from 58 to 21);
• MUX 2 - Białogard (from cards 50 to 35), Elbląg (from 25 to 21);
• MUX 3 - Białogard (from cards 60 to 38), Gdańsk (from 48 to 22), Jelenia Góra (from 49 to 24), Koszalin (from 23 to 48), Kraków (from 50 to 22), Piła (from 60 on 33);
• MUX 4 - Gdańsk (from pp. 52 to 25), Lębork (from 52 to 25);
• MUX L4 - Świdnica, Wrocław (from cards 24 to 27).

Why these changes? To date, digital terrestrial television has used frequencies in the 694-790 MHz band. After refarming, it will be moved to the lower range, which is 470-694 MHz. This is necessary due to the development of the 5G network, but fortunately this does not mean that TV viewers will stay on ice.

In most cases, you won't even have to retune your receivers despite the changes in frequencies.

However, it should be remembered that some televisions or set-top boxes, especially the older ones, may need tuning. However, manual channel search should be sufficient - it is not expected that the equipment receiving television today will not be able to do this on Wednesday.

This means that there is no need to replace TV sets with new ones or you do not have to buy new set-top boxes ... well, at least for now. Owners of older and less advanced equipment must be aware that their time is already counted and they will not run away from buying a new device.

In two years the TV broadcasting standard for DVB-T2 will be updated with the HEVC codec.

As previously agreed, in two years television in Poland will be broadcast in the DVB-T2 / HEVC format, and DVB-T1 and DVB-T2 / MPEG will no longer be supported . This change will make some equipment useless and you will need to buy new ones . Thanks to this, more HD channels and 4K channels will appear.

The refarming process itself will end on June 30, 2022. All these changes are being conducted with a view to developing 5G in Poland . It is true that the 5th generation network is starting in our country in the 2600 MHz ( Plus ) and 2100 MHz bands ( other Polish telecoms ), but this is only the beginning .

We are now waiting for information about the resumption of the interrupted frequency auction , which concerns the 320 MHz band in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band. In addition, 5G tests in the 26 GHz and 28 GHz band are already underway. Added to this is the 700 MHz band, which is now being used by digital terrestrial television.

Digital terrestrial television will broadcast on other waves from Wednesday. Makes room for 5G