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back to article British 4G mobile data rollout 'will mean NO TELLY for 2m homes'

A pressure group campaigning for high-quality broadcasting has warned that 4G phone networks could knock out TV in one in ten UK homes - and by the time anyone notices it will be too late to fix. The Voice of the Listener & Viewer, a membership and donation-funded lobbying body, wants guarantees that once next-gen mobile …

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    1. TheMidnighToker
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      Re: Wait, What?

      I like to believe someone out there is desperately campaigning against the swill of repeats and general low brow-and sensationalist "educational" programming that permeate the airwav---

      Sorry, my mistake; we're talking about the broadcast medium.

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  2. Talset
    Thumb Up

    No problem for me.

    I'd say 90% of my tv viewing is online, and the other 10% is on a cable box for the freeview channels, so bring on the 4g.

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  3. zaax

    I never understood why we (the UK) spent a fortune moving to terrestrial digital anyway. We should have used the money to give everyone either cable or satellite.

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  4. Keith 17
    Go

    All the extra channels are crap

    Freeview is rubbish, freesat is rubbish, apart from football sky is rubbish. Too many channels competing for the same advertisers so no-one has the cash to actually produce quality original programmes.

    Bring on 4G and go back to five channels on analogue, they'll get a decent budget and we might actually get some tv worth watching again.

    Problem solved. Thanks for the applause. I'll waive the fee.

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    1. Lamont Cranston
      Reply Icon

      Re: All the extra channels are crap

      I'm tempted to agree with this, but then I'd not have 5USA, and so be unable to fall back on guaranteed repeats of CSI, when there's nothing else on.

      Maybe we could replace BBC1 and ITV with endless CSI and films where stuff blows up? That'd keep me happy.

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      1. electricmonk
        Reply Icon
        Go

        Re: All the extra channels are crap

        Just so long as I can have ITV4 for the three weeks of the year that it's showing the Tour de France. (Haven't a clue what it shows the rest of the time)

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  5. Iain Leadley
    FAIL

    4G? Whats that

    Where I live its just GSM, how about they actually get everyone onto 3G first?

    As broadband rate increase we don't get anything other than fatter webpages so whats the point anyway.

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  6. ForthIsNotDead
    Meh

    And?

    Does anybody actually watch TV these days? Would anyone notice?

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How about

    Forgetting terrestrial and just use freesat instead, just a box, dish and LNB, no amplifiers required and importantly small room for cowboys to make money unless they try and hoodwink you into taking a multiswitch if you need to use a PVR in mre than one room.

    TIP: its cheaper to get multiple dishes

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    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      multiple dishes

      You can get 8-output LNBs these days, how many PVRs have you got?

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why not just use 700Mhz

    and pander to those iPad3's that can't use 4G...

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  9. David Cantrell
    Thumb Up

    Anything to wean people off the TV teat is a good thing.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ... and the US government whinge about Lightsquared potentially interfering with some old GPS receivers (chosen by the GPS manufacturers) that are picking up frequencies they should not....

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The quicker we move to on demand and IPTV the better... perhaps the government should decree all new TVs have to be IPTV compatible so at least you only have to wait around 5-10 years for the current installed base to die / be replaced.

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  12. Andrew 63
    Facepalm

    Moan moan moan... but have they tested this?

    How do they know its going to knock out freeview? Its digital technology like freeview is, and therefore should be minimal leakage across mhz like there is with analogue....

    Once again people kicking off without testing shizzle.

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    1. Andrew 63
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Moan moan moan... but have they tested this?

      *minimal leakage compared to Analogue...

      I can't type.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I can't type

        Yes, where's the ROTFLMAO icon when you need it?

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    2. Test Man
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Moan moan moan... but have they tested this?

      *facepalm* Somehow I think the people who actually design and produce devices, as well as the people who allocate the spectrum know a bit more than you do, "Andrew 63".

      It being digital tech doesn't mean it's impervious to interference. You still have to keep competing unrelated signals at a distance, or there'll be interference - and with "digital" signals, the result can be worse.

      Digital terrestrial television is transmitted in the same way as analogue and every other transmission kit - over electromagnetic waves.

      Analogue and digital is transmitted in the 470-862MHz range, which is split into UHF channels. 4G for the UK is being proposed to use the 800MHz range, which is the same range as what some digital muxes are already being transmitted at in some parts of the country (UHF channel 60+).

      Therefore, there'll likely be interference which won't merely produce snow (with analogue), but knock the relevant muxes out entirely (as digital means if the kit can't correct the errors, it fails completely). It might be worse with equipment that is "wideband" (i.e. designed to accept signal from the entire UHF range for TV), as this interference at the top end of the UHF channel range might affect the equipment's ability to receive anything over the UHF range.

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  13. Snar
    Thumb Down

    Ofcom are not fit for purpose

    First we have PLT's knocking out Short Wave and VHF, and now this retarded use of spectrum.

    I find it quite funny, really

    ,,,-.-

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  14. M7S

    Alternative solution.

    Whilst I am personally a fan of broadcast TV as a relatively resilient system, and shudder at the thought of losing analogue radio in the future as well as TV, with all the various costs that need to be spent here there and everywhere to fix the problems arising, would it not be better to simply put all these monies into one big pot and use it to roll out FTTH to the entire country with a universal service obligation that would cover "landline" telephony, non-subscription TV, internet etc

    That way more radio frequencies could be freed up for mobile services, although I'd personally want to have a backup of broadcast public media for when the local power supply (and therefore switches) stops for any reason.

    It just seems that it could be a bit better in the long run and there might be side benefits if it was done as a national infrastructure investment. One proviso would that our definition of "super fast broadband" would need to be altered to match that of say South Korea, and no sodding contention ratio issues either.

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    1. Test Man
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      Re: Alternative solution.

      Problem with that is that it'd cost a fantastically high amount of money just to get something like that set up, let alone run, as well as take a very long time to complete. Who is going to be the one who would want a "universal service obligation" imposed on them? BT? Virgin Media? Yes they're already rolling out fibre but look how long that is taking, as well as the fact that they can't (or won't) roll it out to areas that are completely uneconomical to do so. Even someone like Virgin Media, who has a national cable network, doesn't cover a lot of the country, so would you force them to do it?

      And where is this mythical money supposed to come from anyway?

      As it is now, we already have a national terrestrial TV setup in existence (that covers virtually all the country), so from a business point of view, it doesn't make sense and it's far far easier to deal with some interference with a relatively small amount of people than build a whole new system for delivering broadcast TV from scratch, which will cost so so so much more. Yes, it probably sucks but this is the reality.

      In these "credit crunch" times, it's a complete non-starter.

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  15. Matthew 17

    How would you notice if Freeview was worse?

    Never been able to get a stable picture on it.

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    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: stable picture

      http://tinyurl.com/ccz88gs

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  16. Purlieu

    Same time

    Indeed, towards the end of the Man U - Man City match the other day, which became time-critical at the end, the commentator actually mentioned on air that satellite viewers would be up to 10 seconds behind terrestrial (and not just because of the distance before some clever arse chips in) so given that, you are actually not watching in real time.

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  17. the-it-slayer
    Alert

    Can 4G block Simon Cowell?

    Yes please! This man needs to stop producing guff for the millions of bored/senseless people who don't have anything better to do than laugh at talentless idiots. Effectively promoting mocking/bullying on people who are too gullible to sign up for these shows and then get spun round by the Cowell mob. Lure 'em in and then chuck 'em out reality TV.

    Bring back classics like Crystal Maze, The Generation Game, Gladiators (I know Sky pissed up the last attempt to bring it back), Fort Boyard etc.

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  18. Dave_L

    Base station filters

    Can someone explain what these are please

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  19. Frank Butcher
    Mushroom

    Be careful

    Please. won't anyone think of the Badgers ...

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  20. Mark Uhde
    Stop

    Freeview...

    The UK has fantastic DTT. I live in the United States, here it's a mess. Of course, the problem is you guys have to pay for your DTT ("TV License") whether you use it or not. That's why it's so good. You have a nationwide network of coordinated translator stations that operate a centrally managed digital network that is as seamless to the user as any cable or satellite service (to compare - in the US we use ATSC, not DVB-T. ATSC has better line of sight range, but isn't nearly as resistant to multipath which tends to be a bigger issue. Every station has their own license, and can use their 6MHz channel as they please as long as it's ATSC. Every market therefore has different offerings, but I know of none as good as Freeview). This is NOT the major issue it's made out to be, and the DVB-T system is very resilient. It's simply a matter of filtering out-of-band signals from going into amplifiers designed for the whole original TV spectrum, which could overwhelm broadband amplifiers and/or the amplified signal could bleed into the DTT band. I say COULD, because to be realistic, it's not that different from the US where we have many stations coming from many places. Amplifiers to pick up distant stations rarely fail due to stronger TV stations (MUCH stronger) that are closer. It can be an issue, but, eh, not often, even when stations are close. We hear the same theoretical risk as we're re-farming TV spectrum too, and some areas have a station right up against the new 4G spectrum. So far, very very few issues - even in the areas identified as most likely to have problems. The lowest part of our new 4G/old TV band isn't widely deployed yet, but despite the cries, it's been a non-issue where it has. Worst case scenario, some people need some low-pass filters on the input to their TV or amplifier, and life's good again :D

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