DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL television (DTT), a technology that is set to herald a new era in television viewing across Europe, will be available in the Republic from autumn 2009, according to Minister for Communications Éamon Ryan.
DTT, which will eventually replace the traditional analogue television signals, will be available in 80 per cent of households by the end of 2009 and will be extended to all households by 2012, when the Government plans to switch off the analogue signal.
At that point, households who do not already pay for cable or satellite television services will have to buy a set-top box to receive television services.
The price of a set-top box has yet to be determined, but is expected to be less than €100.
Mr Ryan said the Government was considering making set-top boxes available for free to "vulnerable" television viewers, such as elderly and low-income people.
A public awareness campaign explaining the consequences of switching off analogue television and introducing digital terrestrial television would begin in March, Mr Ryan said yesterday.
The means by which set-top boxes would be distributed should become clear at this time.
Mr Ryan said the new service would be accessible to all, simple to set up, affordable and user-friendly, as well as offering higher quality services and greater channel choice. A trial of digital services among 1,000 people in Louth and Dublin concluded yesterday, with 84 per cent of participants reporting that they were satisfied with the overall service.
The Republic will use MPEG4, the latest digital television technology, which is capable of offering high-definition services and more content than the technology currently used in the UK under its service.
RTÉ will develop the national digital terrestrial television service, which will eventually broadcast up to eight channels on a free-to-air basis. These will be the four existing free-to-air channels - RTÉ 1, RTÉ 2, TV3 and TG4 - and four new channels.
The new channels will be Dáil TV and an Irish film channel, both backed by the Government, and two new RTÉ channels: RTÉ 3, which will show archive material, and RTÉ 1+1, which will broadcast RTÉ's schedule on a time delay of one hour. A spokesman for RTÉ said the extra channels would be launched on a phased basis.
The Department of Communications has been inundated with queries from consumers about digital television in the past fortnight. Public interest was sparked by an announcement that Boxer DTT, a consortium that is 50 per cent owned by Denis O'Brien's Communicorp group, had been awarded the licence to operate commercial digital terrestrial television services.
Boxer is expected to offer three packages for prices between €10 and €50 a month to those who want more than eight channels but do not wish to sign up to cable or satellite services. About three-quarters of Irish households are currently customers of either cable company UPC (formerly NTL and Chorus) or Sky's digital satellite service and, therefore, do not rely on analogue.
The UK has already begun switching off its analogue signals region by region, meaning people here on the east coast or near the Border, who currently receive free British channels as a result of an "overspill" of the analogue signal, will eventually no longer be able to receive these channels for free.
The main expense in introducing DTT is building the transmission system, which will cost more than €100 million. These costs, however, could be recouped if the freed-up analogue spectrum is licensed out to software companies, who could use the Republic as a "test centre" for new computer applications, Mr Ryan said.
