Digital TV volunteers: “The difficulty is not in setting up, but in training”

On October 14, Tatarstan switched to digital broadcasting. Over 1.3 million households in the republic got the opportunity to watch 20 channels in high digital quality for free.

For addressing issues related to the transition to digital broadcasting, the hotline 8 800-222-87-16 is operating in Tatarstan. During the seven months of operation, the line received over 6,000 calls. The applications that cannot be resolved remotely, volunteers, namely students of specialized colleges and technical schools who had special training, come to resolve the problem. A total of 2756 volunteers are working in Tatarstan under the digital broadcasting programme.

On the day of turning off the analogue TV, the volunteers met Deputy Minister of the Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia Alexey Volin and Tatarstan Minister of Digitalization Airat Khairullin. During the meeting, “digital assistants” informed about the progress of work and its difficulties.

“A volunteer resolves about 15 applications a day. One application takes 20-30 minutes, including 5 minutes for setting up and the rest of the time goes to training. It is difficult not to set up, but to teach people to use new technology,” Vildan Nazyrov said.

Volin noted that volunteers are taking part in a digital network construction project, which has no analogues in scale in any other country. Khairullin thanked the volunteers and wished them confidence and strength.