A television without peace you might say, with a technological leap in place that is likely to disrupt the market we know, but also to go on to constitute a "killer application" that everyone was waiting for to expand the catchment area of BUL: ultra-wide broadband.

The video-on-demand market is, in fact, growing exponentially, driven by massive use during the lockdown, which has, however, started irreversible processes in changing the way Italians use the most expensive household appliance. New technologies, new content and new players, with first and foremost OTT (over the top), such as Netflix and Amazon, but also like Dazn, which in a coup de grâce has taken away from the monopoly satellite pay TV channel Sky the precious rights to the football Serie A for 2021, by allying itself with TIM for distribution.

A Copernican revolution has been in progress that in November, inevitably, will be one of the major issues addressed at SMART BUILDING EXPO, waiting to find out if the roadmap designed by MISE (Italian Economic Development Ministry) for the new switch off will or will not be complied with, that is, if we will all already be up to the new broadcasting standard or if we will still be waiting to switch to new technology because of delays in the replacement of TVs or in the purchase of new decoders.

We would remind you that, as of today, the confirmed deadlines are September 1st, 2021, as the date on which all national transmissions should pass, in unison and throughout the country, to MPEG-4 encoding and the ten days from June 21st to 30th, 2022 when all digital terrestrial transmissions, again throughout the country, will be broadcast only using the DVB-T2 standard.

This is an important step, also because it comes at the end of a very special period, such as the one we have experienced in the last 18 months.  The new standard should guarantee better video quality and more services, but with a downside that consists of the need for many people to change their TV set or get a new decoder, within a very short time.

If, therefore, at present we are wondering how to bridge this gap, it is certain that huge works involving thousands of technicians and millions of users have already started. In fact, almost no one has pointed out that, in order to get through the new switch-off unscathed, the purchase of a decoder or a replacement TV set may not be enough. In fact, a failure to receive channels may be caused by a malfunction of part of the reception system, or even by radio interference.

If for the end user this is certainly a problem that he/she will presumably want to solve in the shortest possible time, for the sector it is a great business opportunity that it must be ready for, and in November, when the third edition of SMART BUILDING EXPO will take place, we are sure that this will be one of the great topics of device innovation.