Kazakhstan needs digital broadcasting

ASTANA. April 24. KAZINFORM/Zhanat Amirkulov/ On April 28 Astana will hold ?Telecom 29: Innovative Decisions for Corporate Sector?forum which will provide the participants with a unique chance to get exhaustive information of the current condition of the market and prospects of its development,get to know about unique solutions, to participate in the discussion of the issues of further development of the sector. Representatives of the leading producer-companies and operators will make their presentations. Well-known operators and systems integrators will inform of the interesting projects and decisions in energy, transport, banking, industrial enterprises and oil and gas sectors. Chairman of the Board of KazTeleRadio JSC Aidar Kuatbayev told the Kazinform correspondent about importance of the forthcoming forum.
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How important is the forthcoming forum for Kazakhstan?s TV and radio broadcasting? The forthcoming forum will gather a lot of public and commercial companies representing Kazakhstan?s telecommunications. In light of the rapid uprise of new multimedia services, it is expedient that they start joint projects to ensure maximum quality since some of them possess required infrastructure, the other have technological solutions and qualified personnel, others can provide material and financial resources. On the whole this forum will give a fair picture of the current condition and tell the ways to further development. It is known that from 2009 Kazakhstan plans gradual introduction of digital television. What can you tell about the future of digital television? Indeed, we do plan to start this process this year, although budgetary funds have not been allocated as yet. However we want to launch digital broadcasting in major towns using our own resources. The world introduced land terrestrial digital broadcasting in 1998. Now 11 years later we have sound experience where among achievements there are also mistakes and misconceptions which should be considered when switching to digital broadcasting in our country. Today?s question discussed by the world community is when digitalization of broadcasting will be over in one or another country, or when analogous TV broadcasting will be abandoned? As per Geneva 2006 Agreement it was arranged that for Europe and other co-signed countries that the transition period from analogue to digital broadcasting should end in 2015. The advantages of digital broadcasting are obvious. It is a more efficient way to transmit up to 10 programs in one frequency. HDTV broadcast will ensure excellent quality of sound and pictures. What steps has Kazteleradio JSC made to transit to digital broadcasting and what plans have been already made? We have repeatedly tried in 2000 and in 2006 to transmit in digital standard in several areas. We had thrashed out the theoretical aspects, but lacked practical data with regards to the specific conditions of Kazakhstan. First, we plan to build our own satellite network to transmit TV and radio programs to the land-based broadcasting stations which count about 1,200. The entire space of Kazakhstan is huge with small density; therefore satellite network will be a good solution for us. We have arranged with companies Triada-TV, Rohde&Shwarz, Quanta-Air, and B-Lux group of companies to launch complex broadcasting DVB-T/H in Almaty with further transmission in Karaganda. Also we plan to build DVB-S2/MPEG-4 central satellite station to set up program packages and distribute them via the satellite. At this stage we will do the testing and determine the hardware configuration so that in 2010 we could start full introduction of digital broadcasting countrywide.
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