Hello Gentlemen,
Just tootin' the horn here, but today at 15:30PM French local time (GMT + 1) France was the first country to enter Free Terrestrial HDTV broadcasting using MPEG-4 technology.
6 channels are available as of today, with many more later.
The signal is broadcast in UHF Band IV/V (470-860 MHz) alongside the old SECAM L signal.
France selected MPEG-4 as the 1080/50/i signal occupies the same Multiplex channel bandwith as an SD 625 signal.
Some sites (sorry, in French) about the event:
http://www.lesnumeriques.com/news_id-6519.html
http://www.tvnthd.com/V2/pages/286/index.php
For once we're not 10 years behind everyone else ...
Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/France