The technology may be there, but is there the will for further technological progress, writes Julian Clover.
Just how many digital switchovers can the public endure? I ask the question from a technology perspective and partially through a domestic issue.
The home front is straightforward. The mighty Sandy Heath transmitter flipped over in April this year, but was followed up by a couple of further retunes as power was increased after neighbouring transmitters also made the switch.
The technology is a little more complicated. We started off with plain DVB-T, in the UK this has become DVB-T2 though the introduction of HD, but the French have recently frozen this at DVB-T.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised, France after all as to be congratulated on a relatively swift transition to digital television, those on this side of the channel preferring to whip up a few committees before UK switchover is finally completed sometime next year. Europhobes should note it will be just shy of the EC deadline for the transition.
Scarcity of spectrum has been the Whitehall mantra since the pirate radio ships the occupied the British coast in the 1960s. It is still used today, but it is licensed broadcasters that are now the subject of governments that see TV spectrum has a prime resource for broadband, or at least the telcos that might provide such services.
So when Ofcom’s Ed Richards talks about single frequency DTT networks you have to sit back for a moment and wonder who will be the beneficiaries. There remains the talk of rural broadband, and this column has looked at some such opportunities in the past, but we all know that it will be the cities that will be first to reap the benefits.
But at the same time TV needs broadband, regardless of whether or not it is attached to a platform. At the same time it also requires capacity that is clearly unavailable on the terrestrial platform.
Evidence in the UK at least, where 90% of terrestrial HD reception devices turn out to be in TVs, is that pay-TV helped itself to all the customers. But that doesn’t stop the need for DTT to remain competitive.
