Nationwide DVB-T2 network in Albania uses Rohde & Schwarz solutions

Albania’s public broadcaster RTSH (Albanian Radio and Television) is converting its nationwide broadcast network to DVB-T2. Rohde & Schwarz is delivering a turnkey solution. 96.5 percent of the population in Albania will then receive digital DVB-T2 signals. Analog TV will be switched off.

Rohde & Schwarz has won the contract for a nationwide broadcast network in Albania. The delivery for the two DVB-T2 multiplexes will include R&S TMU9 medium-power transmitters, R&S AVHE100 headends, R&S ETL TV analyzers and R&S XLx UHF/VHF transposers as gap fillers. RTSH is receiving the most energy-efficient transmitter systems on the market, with power savings of up to 42 %, meaning a drastic reduction in costs. The headend for the first multiplex encodes several HD and SD channels in H.264. The second multiplex transmits regionally recorded channels over IP to the broadcasting center. These are combined in order to generate eleven different regional service bouquets. The T2-MI gateway is integrated for all generated transport streams.

Broadcast specialist Rohde & Schwarz will equip a total of 59 transmitter stations. 33 stations will be newly established using container solutions in order to provide coverage to remote areas. The compact size of the headends and transmitters made extremely space-saving solutions possible. New coverage gap filler stations will be installed at 15 additional sites.

RTSH operates a television channel (TVSH) and the two national radio stations Radio Tirana 1 and Radio Tirana 2. Radio Tirana 3 provides shortwave and medium-wave broadcasts outside the country. There are also four local radio stations. The new DVB-T2 system has a bandwidth of 8 MHz, 64QAM modulation, and a data throughput of 31.2 Mbit/s per multiplex.

The rollout in Albania is estimated at two years.