It not about the Consumer. But Big Business and Regulator Income.
IPTV, Satellite or Cable can't replace Terrestrial, no matter what Ofcom and Comreg believe. They are complementary.
IPTV and Cable are essentially Pay TV (Broadband to support real IPTV is a lot more expensive).
People are watching more Discs and Internet because TV content is currently a lot poorer than it used to be. This partly because of the dilution of Multichannel TV and impact of PayTV. On Pay TV about 92% of viewing time is still the main free channels.
The people behind this want BBC, ITV, C4, RTE etc crippled, they want Terrestrial and ideally all FTA TV killed and the Regulators want to sell Spectrum Licences. Any service based on LTE Broadcast or some other Broadcast from Mobile Operators will be more expensive to consumer and give worse coverage than current DVB-T.
I supported the original Digital Dividend idea in late 1990s and early 2000s. But It was a mistake. More efficient use of 872 to 2600 Mobile bands would give consumers better service than tacking on 790 to 862MHz Digital Dividend (The only real dividend was Regulator Licence auctions). It has crippled expansion of Terrestrial Digital TV. The plan was originated before HD or growth of pay TV.
Satellite is a much much cheaper broadcast platform for a Broadcaster, especially Pay TV. But Foreign controlled, vulnerable to a "Burp" from the Sun and twice as expensive per TV for viewer to install. Not easily transportable or portable.
Cable TV is Pay TV, Not easily transportable or portable and only Urban/Suburban.
IPTV is 1000s of times more expensive than Broadcast if it was a mass viewing technology with true HD and able to support multiple TV sets.
We will soon have PVRs that can record ALL free channels on a 2 week rolling basis. Makes a nonsense of the running costs and national capital expenditure for Universal IPTV for mainstream viewing and "catch up" TV.
Comreg (Irish Regulator) already stated their aim is abolish all Broadcast. I'd bet Ofcom has the same aim.