Nearly ten days after Cypriot television switched to the new DVB-T2 technology via the Hellas Sat network, hundreds of households are still left in the dark on their TV sets. At the same time, citizens are voicing strong complaints about the high costs of purchasing and installing set-top boxes and are reporting serious problems with retuning and receiving the TV signal, even after using the necessary equipment.

SEE ALSO: “We didn’t anticipate the problems”: Damianos’ admission regarding the chaos surrounding the new TV system

Andronikos Kakkouras, Deputy Director of the Department of Electronic Communications, stated on the Alpha News program that the competent authority has been aware of the problems citizens have been facing the very beginning, and has identified instances of profiteering and the parallel importation of unsuitable decoders.

Mr. Kakkouras explained that many problems stem from worn-out or improper wiring in homes, from the antenna to the television. This is due to the transmission of the high-definition signal, in contrast to the previous transmission of the standard-definition signal.

“We gave three months for this purpose, and honestly, now—we live in Cyprus, in the same place. Even if we had given a year, would it be reasonable to assume that by June 2027 we wouldn’t have the same problems?”

The Deputy Director of the Department of Electronic Communications noted that Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are the European countries that have recently made the same transition and have faced the same problems.

“We simply didn’t expect the problems to be this severe. We thought that a three-month extension would be enough to resolve them.”

When asked why Alpha Cyprus’s proposal for simultaneous broadcast of the TV signal on both platforms was not accepted, he explained that such a thing would not be possible. At the same time, he referred to the proposal by Nikodimos Damianou, Deputy Minister of Research and Innovation, to “reviving” the Velister platform for two months so that the public could resolve the issues over that two-month period.

“It’s our intention; we’re looking into it. There are some technical issues we’re examining to give citizens a breather so they can watch TV and try to resolve the problems within those two months.”

SEE ALSO: TV Problems: The Ministry of Innovation Explains What to Do