Britain readies for digital television

October 15th, 2007 in Technology / Telecom

British television has begun its five-year switch from analog to digital, The Telegraph reported Sunday.

"What we are talking about here is the biggest project in U.K. broadcast engineering history," said Peter Heslop, director of digital switchover at Arqiva, one of the two companies that operate 80 main station masts being converted.

Heslop and his team last week laid the final groundwork for this Wednesday's switchover at a TV mast in Whitehaven, Cumbria -- the first to make the change to digital, multichannel services in Britain.

Switching to digital should ease reception problems for many areas where analog now proves inadequate, but viewers must buy a digital TV set or install a special set-top box, the Telegraph reported.

The United States officially switches over to digital television Feb. 17, 2009.