The Finnish operator DNA has said it will continue to invest in cable and broadband services.
It follows the announcement that the company will close its VHF frequency-based terrestrial network next year and surrender its licence.
DNA says it has made “significant investments” in increasing the number of VHF aerials in Finland – UHF is the typical frequency band for European terrestrial television – but says its efforts to attract a wide range of TV services has not been successful.
“Our objective was to bring competition to the Finnish terrestrial TV market, which has traditionally been dominated by one operator. We wanted to challenge this monopoly in terms of both price and quality,” explains DNA’s Senior Vice President, Consumer Business Pekka Väisänen.
In July, DNA agreed to sell its DTT pay business to rival Digita.
The network will be closed by the end of July 2020, and at the same time DNA will also relinguish its network licence for VHF frequencies.
It’s planned to move the existing services to the UHF network early next year.
The distribution of Yle’s HD channels via DNA’s VHF network will continue for now, and future distribution plans will be announced separately. Distribution of MTV3 HD and TV5 HD free-to-air channels via the VHF network will end at the end of this year.
