Technical challenges of the transition from analog to digital television transmission in Ghana (2015): case study: Digital and Terrestrial Analogue Television Transmission in Accra and Tema Environs
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Date
2011
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Abstract
Countries across the world are moving their analogue television broadcasting system to digital platform. Ghana has set 2015 as the deadline for it analogue television shutdown in agreement with the Geneva 2006 agreement.
The project reviews the analogue and digital transmission in Ghana which is currently carried out in this period of dual illumination, “time period whereby analogue and digital transmission will be carried out simultaneously”, outlining the technical, infrastructural and regulatory challenges during the period, using the current analogue and digital transmission in Accra and Tema as a case study.
Technically, it has been established that, poor sitting of existing DVB-T transmitting stations has affected quality reception of the DTT transmissions at certain locations in Accra and Tema, especially areas between the two transmitters.
Evaluation of STBs distributed by present service operators (SOs) was carried out, it has been established that DVB-T STBs currently available do meet the specifications for the variant of DTT network (DVB-T2) recommended in the Bidding document for DTT network in Ghana, one of the STB do not indicate signal levels beyond 45dBµV/m and also does not output converted DTT signals in its RF-Out.
Possible regulatory issues concerning band usage, channel assignments, service licensing was also reviewed and the findings published in the main body of the thesis.
Based on the findings, it is recommended that DTT transmitters should be co-sited, and aside the main transmitters used by each multiplex operator, gap-fillers would be needed to ensure total coverage of transmitted signals in the Accra-Tema environs. All imported receivers should have a common conditional access system to ensure reception of encrypted services from the various multiplex. One of the minimum requirements of the STBs should be it ability to output converted DTT signals to its RF-Out, so more than one analogue TV set would use a single STB to minimize the cost of the transition to the public.
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A project submitted to the Department of Telecommunication Engineering in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters of Science Degree in Telecommunication Engineering