Senegal’s Excaf Telecom selects Spacecom, HTTV, Conax for national DTT

Excaf Telecom has selected Spacecom’s Amos-5 satellite at 17° East to implement Senegal’s national DTT Project.

Spacecom won the long term contract to digitise Senegal’s broadcast services, as Excaf Telecom aims to create West Africa’s first digital terrestrial network.

Excaf will download its broadcast signals from the AMOS-5 Ku-beam to multiple points of distribution. From these head-ends, Excaf will send the signals over a terrestrial network throughout the country. Excaf’s signal will originate from Senegal’s capital, Dakar.

“The project to digitise broadcast in Senegal is of national importance. We selected AMOS-5 due its beam’s signal strength, the support provided and the satellite’s capacity to expand our network,” said Excaf Telecom’s owner and CEO, Sidy Diagne.

“Bringing DTT to Senegal is highly important in positioning Senegal as a leading country in the broadcast field and bringing television to the Senegalese population.”

Excaf Telecom will also use TV technology provider HTTV’s Hybrid TVOS platform to power its set-tops.

Excaf has signed a contract with HTTV for the deployment of up to one million set-top boxes in Senegal.

Excaf Telecom Group is the first operator in French speaking Africa to manage the analogue switch off decided by the UAT (African countries organisation for telecoms) and to launch a pay TV business on the newly freed DTT spectrum.

The versatile HTTV Hybrid TV operating system will give the opportunity to extend traditional TV services with interactive HbbTV services and On Demand content.

The set-tops for Excaf are based on STmicroelectronics’ STiH253 new DVB-T2 chipset and secured by Conax conditional access.

“For this analogue switch-off in Senegal, it was key for us to choose a reliable, mature and cost- effective solution to create value-added services for our subscribers. HTTV’s hybrid television operating system perfectly answered this expectation and we are very satisfied with our collaboration,” said Sidy Diagne, managing director of the Excaf Telecom Group.

Amos Spacecom will exhibit at IBC on stand 1.C65. HTTV will exhibit on stand 4.B77. Conax will exhibit on stand 1.D69