Hopeland Direct
Hopeland Direct is a free-to-view DBS television operator run by HT&T, providing digital radio and television services to areas of Hopeland where television reception is poor. The operator existed under different formats since at least 1989, when it started its analog service. Between 1993 and 1996, it gave part of its frequencies to Astrowave, but the launch of the digital service rendered it obsolete.
History[edit | edit source]
Phasing down of analog service[edit | edit source]
In 2006, after the rename to Hopeland Direct, a number of digital subchannels (often the East feed) was added to the analog service. At the same time, Hopeland Direct was equating the shutdown of its analog platform.
2009 estimates say that Hopeland Direct had 2 million digital users and 600.000 analog users. At the time, Hopeland was promoting the transition from analog to digital terrestrial television. Hopeland's switchoff was set for 2011, but due to bureaucratic delays, was postponed to 2012.
The service was shut down on October 30, 2017. At shutdown time, the channels were NBN (HWOF), IBC (HWIR), MTN (HWAN), UBS (HWKI) and HPT (HWPT).