Digital TV, a not-for-profit organisation formed by the broadcasters to assist consumers in the conversion to digital television services, has confirmed that the last analogue TV services in the UK will finally be switched off on October 24th 2012 in order to make way for a new generation of superfast Mobile Broadband services.

The first experimental analogue television broadcasts started in August 1932 and the technology was officially launched by the BBC in 1936. The Digital Switchover process itself has been underway since 2008 and a number of regions have already moved over.

Once completed the 800MHz band (790-862MHz) of radio spectrum, which is currently being used for analogue TV, will be freed up for use by mobile network operators. The band is expected to foster a new generation (4G) of Long Term Evolution ( LTE ) mobile technology, which can deliver superfast internet access.


It's worth pointing out that some locations still cannot receive Digital TV services, although many of these will benefit from various changes and power boosts once the old signals are completely disabled. The whole project has come in at least £53 million under budget.

Sadly some locations are still likely to be left out in the cold by the switchover and others (760,000 households) might experience reception problems when the first national LTE services begin to surface towards the end of 2013 or early 2014.