Azeri government approves transition to digital transmission

He added that the transition process will have three phases (2007-10, 2011-13, 2014-15).

At the first phase, digital broadcasts will be available to 60% to 70% of population through two transmission package composing of four programs each in Baku, Ganja and Nakhchivan and a package for the country. At the second phase, one more package will be added to expand digital transmission in Baku, Ganja and Nakhchivan. As a result, digital broadcasts will be available to 90 of population in 2011-13.

3 packages consisting of 12 programs will be in use throughout the country, APA reports.

The third phase will improve digital transmission in the territories receiving weak telecasts and additional transmitters will be installed, 98% will have access to digital broadcasts.

Azerbaijan started to test DVB-T standard digital transmission in 2004. DVB-T, Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial is the DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television.

This system transmits a compressed digital audio/video stream, using OFDM modulation with concatenated channel coding (i.e. COFDM). Services using DVB standards are available on every continent with more than 120 million DVB receivers deployed.