Should spectrum hog TV give up its seat for broadband? You tell us – EU The European Commission wants help in deciding whether or not to allow terrestrial TV to hang on to valuable spectrum. The Commish launched a public consultation on Monday asking industry, academia and users of TV or wireless broadband to speak their brains on how to proceed in allocating the 700 megahertz band. Currently, …
Why would you pay for your free TV just because the delivery changes? If anything it would be cheaper to provide without all that infrastructure beaming signals about the place.
The main question is why the hell would we lock it in until 2030? 15 years is a heck of a long time. In 2000 very few people thought VOD (as we called it then) would happen and now most people I know use some kind of internet video service. The really clever bit is that the ones who currently don't get a good enough connection to use those services would then be able to use the improved wireless broadband to access the services. Win win. Here in the UK there is very little over the air content which isn't also on the internet for free.
TV over (wireless) broadband is an incredibly inefficient way of getting a TV picture. Freeing up all that bandwidth that everyone can receive so that some people before 6pm and after 12am can receive a picture doesn't make a lot of sense.
There would also be the problem of making people pay for (wireless) broadband access as well as the cost of the TV licence for what is supposedly free-to-air TV.
@Dan 55 your point is only true if everyone wants to watch the drivel which is broadcast into homes. Personally I think broadcast TV is the inefficient way to go because most people get what they don't want and watch it anyway. With IPTV, everyone gets exactly what they want, when they want it, and only the proverbial last mile is actually wireless, which allows the spectrum to be used over and over again across the country for different things. With broadcast TV the signal is so strong that it's exceptionally wasteful.
@Richard Jones 1 Yes, that was the entire point of what I wrote. Using the spectrum freed up, the not spots which don't get wired broadband or mobile signal would be much easier to provide for. This is entirely because the TV spectrum travels better than current mobile phone spectrum which in turn travels better than wifi spectrum. That's why they chose it for TV broadcast.
@Paul Shirly, yes I use IPTV for most of my viewing and it's absolutely fine on my connection which is only around 7Mbps down.
What will happen is that everyone will try to watch what they want to watch between 7pm-11pm because that's when they're at home, that's why it's called prime time.
Whereas before people could use live, PVRs, and iPlayer + other on demand TV, in your future everything's on demand. Teleco's would have to set up networks which can cope with prime time demand 24 hours a day, since there's so much physical stuff that has to be set up to deliver the bandwidth. The cost would be enormous.
Also people want a structure to their day, TV is part of that.
"Using the spectrum freed up, the not spots which don't get wired broadband or mobile signal would be much easier to provide for. This is entirely because the TV spectrum travels better than current mobile phone spectrum which in turn travels better than wifi spectrum. That's why they chose it for TV broadcast."
In your answer you've missed the obvious reason why the use of the Broadcast TV frequencies for mobile on demand data is daft!
The reason this spectrum is used for mass market TV broadcast is because it travels well - hence why the UK only needs a few dozen TV transmitters to (mostly) cover the entire country. However, mobile on demand data doesn't need very large cells, it needs small cells (each with it's own masts) to deliver service to the mass market. So to use spectrum that travels well over large distances (ie. 50~100 miles), for services that only need to travel well over small distances (1~2 miles) is pointless and wasteful, particularly as the solution to the current mobile not spot problem is to deploy a few more masts on existing frequencies.
@Roland6 kind of, yes. But those dozens of transmitters use massive power output to achieve that. With lower power the signal would dissipate faster while still travelling well within that distance for things like penetrating walls for instance or better diffraction characteristics on hilly terrain or better bouncing off of things. I'll be honest I've not looked up the specifics for this frequency, but even as another point to point frequency it couldn't hurt for wireless broadband out in the sticks.
> But those dozens of transmitters use massive power output to achieve that.
Yes, I didn't really get the need to massively increase the transmission power after the switchover, given aerials etc. were installed based on the much lower (pre-switchover) power output and each product release seemed to offer better receivers. However, I'm not an RF engineer, but do remember reading that transmitter Watts are different to Watts of power from the electricity supply.
@Lusty have you even noticed how bad most IPTV is, over compressed, under resolution and rarely streaming smoothly at busy times? Were years away from consistently good quality streams, if suppliers ever decide they even need to bother for an audience taught to accept crap.
Broadcast has its quality problems but the replacement is simply crap and likely to stay that way.
Wireless would be useless to those people in not spots if you wanted to provide them with IPTV. Wireless is a contention-based medium. Hundreds or thousands of households all competing for bandwidth to stream their fav. shows would bring the whole network to a crawl.
Some communications lend themselves naturally to a point to point or peer distribution system, and others fit far more naturally within a broadcast system. TV is a natural fit for a broadcast system.
Naive backwards thinking. The answer should be "YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES", however it has not been phrased properly.
We should absolutely sell off our bandwidth. It absolutely makes sense to use mobile communication frequencies best suited to communicating with mobiles.
It makes absolutely no sense to deliver IPTV via wireless. If you are in a static location, it also makes no sense to use wireless infrastructure for a permanent connection.
Spectrum is valuable stuff. We absolutely should sell our spectrum to whomever will pay the most for it, and use the proceeds to provide a real public communications backbone in the UK. FTTH is what is required, not in towns but everywhere. The 3G auction produced enough money to pay for every home in the UK to be lit.
So, 1) Sell bandwidth, 2) fibre up the country with the money, 3) allow operators to use their newly freed up bandwidth.
In one step, we've paid for the modernization of our internet infrastructure in a way that no other country in the world could match, we've maximised the usage of our spectrum to allow our communications to be more ubiquitous and by making FTTH universally available, we're not limiting the access to information to the rich.
All by flogging some radio spectrum...
When you say "sell off our bandwidth", i'm kinda assuming you really mean to lease it out and keep ultimate control with some other group.
The fly in your ointment? Once someone *cough* has their grimy mitts on the money; it will be siphoned off for whatever flavour of current boondoggle they're pushing and none of it will go into a fibre upgrade.
And the result should STILL be free tv without having to pay some ISP for connection and delivery.
@Tom38
Works for me in principle - until it collides with UK political reality, when:
"So, 1) Sell bandwidth, 2) fibre up the country with the money"
... actually amounts to 1) Sell bandwidth, 2) give all the money to BT in spite of better competing bids, 3) wait 5 years over schedule, 4) get half the coverage the money supposedly paid for, 5) explain to consumers why they're paying twice the forecast amount, 6) enjoy Tory MP paid lobbyist telling the commons what a 'great British company' BT are.
2-5 will happen because, contracts or not, BTs lawyers are better paid than yours and will run rings round them, as they've proved time and again. It will all happen because politics in this country - irrespective of who's in power - is all about short term political gain and the power of lobbying, and not at all about serving the common good.
Works for me in principle - until it collides with UK political reality, when...
So we can't have nice things, paid for in a sensible way, because in the past we haven't managed to do it? We might as well stick with our current system and just continue to fade in to insignificance, because cynicism?
Seems like a bit of a barrier to progression.
"So we can't have nice things, paid for in a sensible way, because in the past we haven't managed to do it?"
I don't think its cynical, just a realistic view of the way our political system functions at present. The skewed referendum we had in 2011 has basically saddled us with a system in which creating a shift in the way politics is done is almost impossible. Without solid, long term cross party backing and someone with a very clear vision to see it through, the money would inevitably be 're-purposed' for the next governments pre election vote buying initiative.
I'm with you, its tragic. But unless you fundamentally change politics you'll just end up providing BT a massive subsidy for little actual return. There is nothing in the present climate that offers any hope we could do a big, nationwide infrastructure project successfully at all.
This intended redeployment of broadcast TV frequencies to mobile internet providers seems to be an old school anti-competition move, disguised as something that will benefit consumers by giving them exactly what they want. From the way this is being presented it would seem that the intention is to effectively take from the existing broadcast TV network operators and give to the mobile providers (well those willing to hand over bags of gold) and in so doing reduce the number of independent routes to market for TV content.
Simply Yes :P
Publicly owned infrastructure, then service providers can charge to provide end points for IP, telephones, subscription TV, etc. over it. FTA radio and TV can just be another high level service, delivered by multicast. That way everyone gets the same types of stuff as they do now, but with a better service, and we don't have all this nonsense with multiple masts, spectrum allocations, and notspots.
It would be easier to influence this if there was a link.
Try here.
This is probably one of those rare occasions that you have to contact your MEP, though good luck if you find yourself trying to persuade a Kipper that the EU isn't attempting to steal our plucky British spectrum.
There's no good reason the UK can't be "mostly satellite" other than "tradition"
As for "can't see satellite", this would be solved by striking down some of the more silly planning restrictions (UHF antennas on 6 metre poles are far uglier than a sat dish mounted lower down) and making it mandatory to provide distributed systems in HMOs/blocks of flats. The actual number of "non-satellte" locations is down around 0.1% of the country and 0.01% of the population.
>UHF antennas on 6 metre poles are far uglier than a sat dish mounted lower down
i would agree, however, what amuses me is my neighbour uses such a pole ("professionally installed") - which gets blown about and has reception problems, but I've placed my aerial in my roof space (DIY install) and have no reception problems...
>>though good luck if you find yourself trying to persuade a Kipper that the EU isn't attempting to steal our plucky British spectrum.<<
And yet another dollop of gratuitous UKIP bashing .. boooooorrring
Maybe you should watch a few of the YouTube vids of UKIP MEPs making the EU stand up and be accountable and taking them down when they are proved to be spouting rubbish.
have a down-vote for being a stereotype.
Simply. Maybe.
Or at least that seems to be the current situation because everything's been retuned to free up channels 60+ for LTE and if the EU were to free up the 700Mhz band then everything would have to be retuned again to free up channels 50+. In the UK channels 30-39 are reserved anyway so that leaves very little spectrum for digital TV.
If this carries on digital TV's going to end up retuned into obsolescence.
With DVB all broadcasters have switched from a pseudo analog-digital flow to a flat out digital steam, rather than wasting radio frequency(and in several cases overcooking bystanders with out of regulation power ranges) on radio and TV why not just stream the channels over the internet? Even with the meager bandwidth that fttc offers its a whole different planet from the average dvb-t channel(if memory serves me right roughly 6 mbps per channel or worse). Obsolescence? Your average grandma won't care if the telly comes from a settop box that uses the antenna, sky or internet as long as it gets her favorite show so it won't change anything. Switch all the tv, fm radio and dab off while we are at it and use them for LTE(and use LTE to get the radio and tv channels whie on the go).
"Your average grandma won't care if the telly comes from a settop box that uses the antenna, sky or internet"
She will if she has to lay out north of £150 for a sat. dish or a monthly ISP fee for a package big enough to do streaming and high enough caps to watch telly all day without it suddenly slowing down to dial-up speeds when a data cap is hit just so she can carry on watching "free" TV.
I'm in the 50+ age group, have been in IT since school, have all the latest gadgets and technology and I STILL prefer OTA TV to streaming. Mainly for reliability but also because it's FREE. Admittadly I use a PVR to timeshift/avoid adverts, but doing that from a TV guide or just browsing to see what's on is way less painful than installing all the various apps for different channels, checking each to see what's on and being "forced" to watch adverts/trailers in some case because there's no way to record it onto my own media or FF into the show.
Streaming has a long, long way to go before it can hope to match the convenience of OTA (+ PVR)
is exactly that: it's broadcast. There's no delivery infrastructure between the viewer and the transmitter, no need for contracts, no need for extra hardware, no buffering, no contention, no location limitation.
When you can deliver that some other way *at no incremental cost to the user*, feel free to turn it off.
Until then, get your stinkin' hands of this public good.
Fair point, if a bare-bones Freesat box and mini-dish didn't cost much more than a Freeview box and TV aerial.
Problem is that the Freeview box and TV aerial are already in place. Are we expected to cough up yet again (I've had to replace Freeview box once already) to watch TV that's infested with ads -- and pay a TV licence ?
My freesat receiver cost 19 quid. My dish cost nowt; sky dishes are littering the country.
Funnily enough, I rarely watch broadcast TV. I prefer watching stuff on catch-up or netflix etc.
I'm even considering getting rid of freesat and the TV licence (radical....I'll have the crapita goonsquad on my back!)
Quote from TV licensing: "You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder."
So even if you rarely watch live tv from any source, regardless of the transmission method, you still need a TV licence.
Not everyone has a line of sight from their house to the satellites. Not everyone is allowed to put a satellite dish on their house.
For widely watched television channels (BBC, ITV, etc), broadcast makes a lot of sense*. For television that appeals to low-technology users, broadcast also makes sense (hence why we still have shopping channels).
* multicast would also make sense, if the multicast network extended from the broadcaster into the house (or at least the cabinet that provides a dedicated copper line into the house).
This narrowing of broadcast spectrum wouldn't be an issue except for backward compatibility - Freeview uses MPEG2, whilst Freeview HD uses H.264. It'll take a long time for most users to have Freeview HD capability, so the old, less efficient standard needs to stay around. I propose multiplexes are converted one at a time to H.264, one every few years, until only the major channels are on Freeview only.
Let's hope we don't get Freeview HD+ with H.265 4K channels, necessitating a whole new set of equipment. Or if we do, that they sort it out sooner rather than later.
Freeing up more UHF bandwidth for mobile broadband is a very short-sighted way to go, especially at lower frequencies that will travel further.
There are relatively few places where it is entirely necessary to use LTE/UMTS to get your data. At home, a wired broadband connection and short-range wireless data is far less bandwidth hungry.
As wired high-speed broadband networks spread further, the back-haul is upgraded to support the usage and ISPs embrace multicast rather than forbidding it, IPTV will begin to rival, and even better DTTV for quality and people will naturally switch, and as usage falls, commercial channels will abandon DTTV, leaving room for a few, basic channels to remain in a reduced set of multiplexes, freeing up bandwidth for other, as yet unthought-of purposes.
So in this supposedly "Green" world we live in where we are supposed to be cutting back on our power usage, how much extra power is this going to need to supply all the individual feeds to people instead of one single broadcast? All that new kit needed in the home sending all that old kit to landfill - again.
Ah - of course... missing the obvious. Broadcast TV covers everyone equally with the same service. Whereas a wireless system is going to be more point-to-point therefore allowing a more personalised advert laden experience. Gotta get the adverts in.
Are there places where all channels are occupied? Would this have any negative effect anywhere, other than making some broadcasters change their RF channel number, the cost for which they could be compensated for? Or would it require some have to cease operations in big cities like London because there aren't enough channels if this spectrum is taken?
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