Russian state broadcasting network taps Nevion for digital transition

The Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRN) has tapped technology outfit Nevio to provide equipment to support its digital switchover transition.

RTRN has deployed Nevion’s T2-bridge and TS monitoring equipment to support its move from analogue to digital TV. RTRN’s DTT network covers 85 regions, across five time-zones and has around 5,000 transmission sites.

RTRN’s requirements include each region being able to transmit a combination of the national and regional feeds from national broadcasting group (VGTRK) and private commercial broadcasters.

National feeds are sent via satellite from a federal headend, while the regional programming is sent from regional headends via a dedicated satellite feed.

The two satellite feeds are combined onsite, ready for transmission by the DTT towers, using a single frequency network (SFN) RTRN selected three vendors to provide the regionalisation equipment. Nevion’s CP330 was chosen for about a third of the transmission sites.

Nevion is also providing TS-monitoring equipment from its nSure family, to enable fault detection and diagnostics at each regional headend.

“Nevion was chosen to be part of this extensive project not only because of the capabilities of the products and the expertise of the company, but also because it was able to manufacture and ship the large number of units required within the necessary time-frame for the roll-out,” said Igor Stepanov, press secretary, RTRN.

“Our new DVB-T2 network went live at the start of 2018, and has been working as planned, including throughout June and July for the FIFA World Cup in Russia.”

Hans Hasselbach, chief commercial officer for Nevion, said: “Nevion has a great track record in digital terrestrial networks. For example, our products are used in over 2/3 of all DVB-T2 networks worldwide so naturally we are proud to have been able to work with RTRN to bring our knowhow to one of the world’s most extensive networks!”