TFL have recently been awarded the contract for manufacture, intergration and suplly of cabins for the DSO project starting mid 2008 in the UK and Ireland.
The move to digital is the biggest project in UK broadcasting history - in comparison, the original introduction of television was far smaller scale, and growth was gradual. On the horizon now is a
region-by-region switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting for the UK's 22 million households. The programme will see the UK's entire terrestrial television infrastructure - which took 30 years to build - replaced and rebuilt within five years. The transmitter network rarely receives any attention mainly because it is so reliable; it is not very often that your terrestrial picture disappears off the screen. With the transition from analogue to digital it will have a brief period in the limelight. The current analogue system has been in operation, albeit re-engineered, since the mid-60s and the present Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) system has now been on air for seven years. The overall DSO project is a national programme in support of a UK Government mandate. Industry has adopted a transition plan, which has been designed to deliver minimal disruption to the nation's TV viewers, while maximising the possibility of technical success within the Government's mandated timescales. The physical work on engineering of cabins for the network will commence during mid-2008. The task is to make the transition from analogue to an all-digital world. Ideally the new digital system would be rolled out and, after a suitable period of time, the analogue closed down. Unfortunately there is not enough spectrum for them to co-exist so something has to give. The strategy that has been developed is a phased withdrawal of analogue coupled with phased rollout of the new high-power DTT system over a period of four years. The scale of this project is enormous. Some 700 cabins to be on site to give national coverage for the Public Service Broadcasting (PSB).