Al-Jazeera cries foul

Islamic broadcaster Al-Jazeera's broadcasting has been disrupted across the Arab region, says the Doha-based channel which has run round-the-clock coverage of the mass protests in Egypt, reveals AFP.

"Signals on the Nilesat platform were cut, and frequencies on the Arabsat and Hotbird platforms were disrupted continually... across the Arab world," the news satellite channel said in a statement.

Al-Jazeera, which has been facing growing clampdowns by Egyptian authorities over its coverage of the protests, said "their broadcast signal across the Arab region is facing interference on a scale they have not experienced before."

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conditionally designated nine entities as TV band 'white space' device database administrators, writes TV Technology.

These databases tell TV band devices what channels they can transmit on without causing interference to TV broadcast stations, wireless microphones and other authorised broadcast auxiliary services.

The FCC will be closely monitoring the database administrators. In the Order (DA 11-131) revealing the database administrators, the FCC said, "we... require each database administrator to coordinate closely with the agency to ensure competency, consistency and compliance with the rules and the database trials."

The closure last week of the Z1 24-hour news channel was a 'blow' to the Czech Republic's switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting, according to some experts, but the country is nevertheless expected to turn off analogue for the entire country by the end of 2011, notes the Prague Post.

In 2005, the EU issued a recommendation that all member states cease analogue transmissions by 1 January 2012.

The newer technology allows for multiple channels to be broadcast on a single frequency, whereas with analogue, only one can be transmitted.