The European Commission says it wants member countries to speed up the switch from analogue to digital TV so that the 790MHz to 862MHz frequency band can be made available for mobile broadband and other mobile services. It says freeing the analogue TV spectrum for these new services could end up giving Europe’s economy a boost of up to €50 billion.
Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, called on EU countries to make the move to digital TV happen by 1st January 2012. Finland, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Sweden have already switched off their analogue TV services; the UK currently plans to switch by the end of 2012.