Most people already have a digital TV receiver, either via terrestrial (Freeview) or satellite (Sky). There's also cable in some areas. The old analogue terres

Most people already have a digital TV receiver, either via terrestrial (Freeview) or satellite (Sky). There's also cable in some areas. The old analogue terrestrial signals are being turned off region-by-region. Part of the Scottish Borders is already off, with the next switchovers being in August and November in Wales and "Granada", the anachronistic name for the TV region roughly covering the North West of England. Everywhere will be changed over by 2012. Our system is quite different to that in the US; the four main channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4) are carried universally by every transmitter, even on relays covering tiny villages of a few tens of people. Rather than getting multiple independent TV stations to change over by a certain date, we just need to go round each region and upgrade all the transmitters to carry four digital multiplexes rather than four analogue channels. (Of course, it's more complicated than this, but that's the gist of what's happening.) There's a lot of information here: http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch