Press room Abertis Telecom opens its new Torre de Collserola Center This site offers audio-visual coverage to five million people and transmits analogue and digital TV and radio, in addition to services for operators, companies and public institutionsBarcelona, Decembre 04th, 2008 Barcelona, 25 November 2008.- abertis telecom, a telecommunications company belonging to the abertis Group, has a new control centre in its Torre de Collserola facilities, from where it provides telecommunications services with coverage for more than five million people.
From this site, abertis telecom transmits analogue and digital television and radio to the city of Barcelona and its greater area, in addition to other telecommunications services for operators, companies and public institutions. After the analogue switch-off which, according to the requirements of the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Technical Plan, must take place in 2010, the whole area of influence of this centre will only receive a digital signal. The improvements introduced now form part of the process for the adaptation and digitalisation of the abertis telecom network.
The Torre de Collserola centre has more than 40 Abertis Telecom professionals who are responsible for ensuring it works correctly 24 hours a day, in order to guarantee the service. abertis telecom, with 42%, is the main shareholder of Torre Collserola, S.A., the company that owns this emblematic telecommunications centre.
Control and supervision of the signal
The improvements that abertis telecom has introduced in the Torre de Collserola control centre include those affecting the system for the monitoring of TV and FM radio signals. This system has now been strengthened with the incorporation of two new elements:
Video Wall. Enables the generation of image mosaics and the establishment of alarms that provide notification of a lack of signal or its degradation, allowing the simultaneous control of up to 300 video signals.
Video and audio switching matrices, which speed up the sending of the signals to the Broadcast Centres, as well as the exchange of signals towards client production centres. It also facilitates the transmission of signals to measuring equipment, enabling the response time for signal quality incidents to be reduced.
The network of centres and systems for the transport and broadcast of television and radio located in the east of Spain is supervised from this control centre, covering the autonomous regions of the Basque Country, Navarra, Rioja, Aragon, the Valencia Region, Murcia, the Balearic Islands and Catalonia through the corresponding terminals of the equipment and infrastructure management network.
Services offered by abertis Telecom from Torre Collserola
Designed by the architect Norman Foster, with a height of 288 metres, the Torre Collserola is the most emblematic technology facility in Catalonia. It was opened 1992, unifying the services until then offered by various centres located in the Collserola mountain range, in Barcelona. That same year, for the Olympic Games, this centre offered more than 31,000 hours of television to TV stations all over the world.
The services offered from this site are as follows:
1. Broadcast and transport of analogue and digital signals.
Distribution of the main programmes broadcast in Catalonia, in addition to the exchange of signals with the Torrespa a telecommunications centre in Madrid, and the Arganda del Rey satellite centre in order to establish various services. Occasional links are also established in order to guarantee the audio-visual coverage of various events and sports broadcasts. Altogether,
o 35 analogue TV programmes
o 45 DTT programmes,
o 25 FM radio broadcasts,
o 18 DAB digital radio programmes
o 4 DTT head-ends are broadcast
2. Mobile communications.
The management and supervision of the TETRA networks is carried out at Torre Collserola, by means of which abertis telecom offers a mobile communications service to the safety and emergency services of various autonomous and local governments (including the Catalonia Government and the Valencia Autonomous Region, among others).
3. Automatic water information system.
Through this service offered by abertis telecom to the Ag ncia Catalana de lAigua, the supervision and control of 150 points (reservoirs, supply stations and rain gauges) spread throughout Catalonia is carried out.
About Abertis Telecom
abertis telecom is one of the leading European operators in telecommunications infrastructures and services and, with more than 3,200 centres, has the biggest network of sites in Spain for the broadcast and distribution of audio-visual signals. In Spain, it is at the forefront of DTT implementation and is working on the development of mobile DTT. It has thus promoted several projects which also include the international arena. abertis telecom forms part of abertis, an international group in the field of mobility and telecommunications infrastructure management.
In the satellite sector, abertis telecom is the main shareholder of the operator Eutelsat, with 32%, and Hispasat, with 28.4%. Last October, it acquired an additional 5% in Hispasat in a transaction awaiting approval by the Council of Ministers.
