- Office of Electronic Communications

UKE has completed monitoring the frequency release process for 5G

The process of switching digital terrestrial television channels has been completed, thanks to which the frequencies necessary for the development of 5G technology in Poland have been released. The entire process was supervised by employees of the Regional Branches of the Office of Electronic Communications.

Release of the 700 MHz band, previously used by terrestrial television, i.e. refarming and reorganization of terrestrial TV multiplexes results from the decisions of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The technical operators selected by the broadcasters are responsible for the switching and quality of the transmitted signal, but the Office of Electronic Communications has been involved in this process from the beginning. The President of UKE prepared a frequency management plan for the relevant frequency range, which was then consulted publicly and issued a decision to change the reservation for broadcasters, agreed with the President of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT).

The switching process involved 98 stations. Only on the first day (June 3 this year) monitoring covered 63 digital terrestrial broadcasting stations, including all the main broadcasting centers of the MUX 1, MUX 2 and MUX 3 multiplexes, which accounted for nearly 70 percent. total number of all stations covered by the changes.

On the second day, monitoring covered another 34 broadcasting stations (including 6 broadcasting stations measured again). Around 93 percent were already monitored at this stage. total number of all stations covered by the changes.

On the last day, 12 broadcasting stations were monitored (5 broadcasting stations were measured again). As a result of the spectrum monitoring carried out, it was confirmed that all the frequency channels planned for changes had been used in a total of 98 digital terrestrial broadcasting stations.

This stage of refarming will cover the following voivodships: Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Małopolskie, Lubuskie, Opolskie, Dolnośląskie, Podkarpackie and Śląskie. Importantly, the DVB-T broadcast standard remains unchanged. However, on June 30 2022, the standard will change to DVB-T2 / HEVC, which is worth remembering when buying a new TV set.