The adoption of the Common Interface standard through the purchase of Nokia digital decoders for digital television by the new broadcasting company, Vía Digital, in Spain pushes forward trend towards digital TV in Europe.

With Spain being one of a growing number of countries in
Europe to launch fully digital broadcasting, it is
significant that Nokia Multimedia Network Terminals has settled an agreement in this market. Some 50,000 Mediamaster
digital decoders will be delivered in time for the launch
of the Spanish service in September.
According to Jari Valtonen, Account Manager of Nokia Multimedia Network Terminals, "Nokia was chosen because its equipment supported the Common Interface for conditional access. This 'open systems' concept is very powerful because it allows the end user to use the same digital decoder for many services."

Greater Freedom
Open standard provides end users with the opportunity to
subscribe to a range of services offered by a number of
companies rather than being tied to a single supplier.
Nokia Mediamaster 9601 is the first satellite receiver and multimedia terminal of its kind available today to be fully compatible with the digital video broadcasting standard DVB/MPEG 2 and Common Interface.
The DVB technology has the ability to offer innovative
services such as home shopping, home banking, video-on-
demand plus features including reception of digital
satellite television signals, Internet connection as well
as allowing connection to personal computers, printers and
CD-ROM drives.

Agreement with broadcaster
The agreement has been made with Vía Digital, a new company formed by Spain's main broadcasters: the telecommunication giant Telefónica, Radio Television
Espaniola, the Mexican media conglomerate Televisa and some other media publishers.
The satellite service company intends to offer
subscribers more than 70 television channels in September 1997.
Nokia branded digital decoders will be available for
rental through a great network of outlets throughout the country, with more than 6 000 selling points.
Nokia Multimedia Network Terminals is part of the Nokia
Group which in 1996 had net sales of US $8500 million. The
Group employs around 33,000 people in 45 countries and has
sales in more than 120 countries world-wide.

Caption: The 'open systems' concept offered by Nokia's Mediamaster is very powerful because it allows the end user to use the same digital decoder for many services.

For further information:
Mr Pekka Kuusela, Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Tel: +49 211 908 95 599, Mobile:+49 171 215 8281

or
Alberto Yonte, Sales Co-ordinator (Spain)
Tel: +34 1 657 8500, Mobile:+34 0964 6165
http://www.nokia.com

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