Russia’s MTS makes digital gains, following analogue switch-off

Russian service provider MTS has rolled out digital television to almost 150 cities across the country after completing its analogue-to-digital switchover at the end of last year.

In an update, detailing the outcome of its multi-year infrastructure investment into digital TV and broadband access, MTS said that by the end of 2013, 25% of pay TV subscribers had switched to digital and that a third had taken additional channel packages – such as sports or films.

MTS said that the total number of TV channels now available to subscribers has doubled to 340, with the number of HD channels increasing almost nine-fold to 37 channels.

Commenting on the investment programme, MTS’s director of fixed-line business and TV Dmitry Bagdasarian said that 90% of MTS’s networks had now been transferred to new “fibre-to-home” technologies and that it had started to offer triple-play services.

MTS completed its digital switchover in November.