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SPRING 2018
RTC is Now 100% IPTV,
Which is 100%Good News
This leap in technology was years in the making—and well worth the effort
RFTV’s Limitations
While RFTV was a common TV system in
the 1980s, it wasn’t able to keep up with
all the changes in TV entertainment in the
ensuing decades. RFTV had the capacity
for just 60 channels on its 550 MHz spec-
trum, which created challenges for RTC.
Roger Hovda, retired Operations Officer,
recalls, “Content providers came out with
new channels and required RTC to carry
the whole suite. Then HD channels entered
the scene. RFTV wasn’t able to grow to
meet these demands, so we knew we had to
make a change.”
A Step in the Right Direction
The next step in RTC’s TV journey was
the addition of digital set-top boxes, which
allowed for HD channels and increased the
overall channel capacity. This was not a
simple change. It required RTC to upgrade
our headend, which is the control center for
the TV system where signals are brought
together and monitored for processing and
distribution throughout the network. It
also required RTC to go to every single TV
customer’s house and install set-top boxes
—the process is called cut overs—and
that began in 2008.
“Although this step enhanced our RFTV, it
was a bit like putting on a Band-Aid since
we foresaw difficulties for the future. The
number one problem was that the current
coax plant still needed to be upgraded—a
very expensive project that would still leave
us with a digital RFTV system and be more
of a horizontal move rather than a leap
into the future,” says Hovda.
Other RFTV issues included:
• The RFTV set-top box was extremely
large and inconvenient for our
customers.
• The cost to add each HD channel in
the headend was $20,000.
• With RFTV, there’s only one-way com-
munication, so VOD and Pay-Per-View
were not possible.
Leading theWay in IPTV
Recognizing the need to replace RFTV
with IPTV (Internet Protocol Television),
Brooks Goodall, now Chief Operations
Officer, started researching to find a
On December 6, 2017, RTC turned off RFTV (Radio Frequency Television) — the system we’d used since
becoming a TV provider in 1981. This was the close of one chapter in our history and the beginning of
an exciting new one.
L to R: Roger Hovda, retired Operations Officer; Bob Blunck, Video Tech II; and Brooks Goodall, Chief Operations Officer meet at RTC’s headend—the control center of our IPTV system.