BTESA, Enensys Team Expands Delivery Of TV Channels For RTVC

Broad Telecom SA (BTESA), a turn-key systems integrator and transmitter manufacturer, announced “a new milestone on efficient delivery of TV channels with the first DVB-SIS deployment in America.” It deployed a OneBeam solution from Enensys Technologies in the archipelago of San Andres and Providencia for RTVC in Colombia.

BTESA, awarded with both lots of phase V of RTVC’s DVB-T2 network deployment, had to deliver and install 13 complete DVB-T2 stations (transmitters, antenna systems, UPS, diesel generators, TVROs, IRDs, towers, etc) throughout the country, including the archipelago of San Andres and Providencia.

Providencia Island presents a very challenging topology for a DTT network, highly mountainous, with a population all throughout, required an all-around radiation. The distance between the islands and any other land mass, combined with the absence of fiber optics and the limited number of microwave links, made mandatory the use of satellite feed to the islands’ transmitters, the company said. Using the existing satellite infrastructure of RTVC, the DVB-SIS technology fed all regions using the Coast Regional Television Channel, in DVB-T2, maintaining the SFN properties.

Already deployed in several DVB-T/T2 markets around the world, OneBeam (compliant with DVB-SIS standard) has been designed to use the same satellite capacity to deliver services for both DTH and DTT networks. Before DVB-SIS two separate networks have been required to deliver a content bouquet to DTH and DTT (DVB-T2) viewers because receivers for one could not use signals from the other. The company said the DVB-SIS solution enables the use of a DTH satellite service to feed DVB-T2 BTESA transmitters, “delivering significant savings in satellite transponder capacity and OPEX costs.” At the headend, the Enensys SmartGate provides all the signaling and synchronization information for the Enensys TxEdge units at each transmitter site to build the T2 multiplex for transmission, enabling SFN operation of transmitters. This migration is transparent for DTH users.

“After a few days setting up the solution in our lab in Madrid, the installation and commissioning onsite was plug-and-play,” said Manuel Guevara, BTESA broadcast systems engineer. “A well-planned upgrade of the existing architecture, made the transition a smooth process with minimum disruption of services. The DTT coverage was expanded in the Island of Providencia by installing another DVB-T2 Transmitter from BTESA, and creating a SFN network fed by the DVB-SIS solution”

BTESA said it was able to “successfully deliver all stations, overcoming the challenge of manufacturing, integrating, delivering and installing all systems in a short time (30 weeks), on top of the worldwide logistics disruption due to the pandemic.”

“We are delighted that BTESA has proposed the OneBeam solution to RTVC to extend its digital terrestrial network”, said Laurent Roul, Enensys VP of marketing. “Once again, the benefits of OneBeam were highlighted with this use case. RTVC was looking for a solution to expand its network while using existing infrastructure at an affordable cost. The OneBeam solution met these requirements by combining DVB-T2 transmitter feed distribution with conventional DTH delivery to save satellite bandwidth capacity. We are very pleased to collaborate with BTESA who have proven that the system can be installed easily and quickly to enable efficient distribution of TV services.”