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4G will wipe out Freeview in 1.9 million homes, confirms Ed Vaizey

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It’s (almost) as bad as we feared; rollout of 4G across the 800MHz spectrum will hobble Freeview broadcasts signals in 1.9 million UK homes, Ed Vaizey confirmed to the Government yesterday, Thursday, 17th May 2012.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, responding to questions from MPs John Mann and Anna Soubry about the 4G/Freeview face-off said that:

“Ofcom estimated that the number of households using signal amplifiers was 9 million of which up to 945,000 could be affected and the number of households using a communal aerial system was 5.6 million of which up to 953,000 households who use communal aerial systems could be affected.”

This works out at 1,898,000 million homes which stand to lose access to Freeview. That's quite a few less houses than the 2.3 million claimed in the earlier VLV report.

The homes which stand to lose out are in areas where there’s already low Freeview signal (necessitating the use of a signal amplifier) or in apartments with a single master aerial.

A partial solution to the problem is the formation of MitCo, a company which will supply “information and providing DTT receiver filters to households proactively and reactively. Platform changes will also be offered to households where filters do not solve the issue of interference.”

MitCo: UK mobile networks using 4G to pay for Freeview outage

MitCo will be funded by a £180 million pot which will come from “the new 800 MHz licensees” (i.e. O2, Everything Everywhere, Vodafone and Three). The Government will bear the brunt of any overspend and any money left over will be split halfway between the Government and the networks.

£20 million of the £180 million will be spend on installation support of filters and equipment to “vulnerable customers.”

The ‘Platform changes’ above presumably refers to Freesat, the free-to-air platform that offers much of the same channels as Freeview. As Freesat is satellite-based it won’t be affected by the 800MHz signal crossover.

There’s a potential problem here if the landlord of a communal property won’t consent to a dish being fitted.

Vaizey mentioned an Ofcom estimate that the numbers of affected households could fall to 5,100 and 3,400 households for the respective groups once “a mixture of consumer based and selective mobile network based mitigation methods are applied.”

So once MitCo has done all it can, the total number of households affected falls to 8,500. That’s a small customer base that Sky or Virgin Media could potentially muscle in on, again, depending on landlord’s willingness to install dishes and the reach of Virgin’s cable network.

Ofcom is “currently considering all responses” and is expected to publish a statement in the summer. The full Hansard report can be found here.

Freeview currently broadcasts on the 600MHz, 700MHz and 800MHz frequencies. It's also a concern that the launch of mobile broadband on the 700MHz spectrum could reduce Freeview to a rump of 20 channels in 2018.

Thanks for that John,we have just replaced our Freeview box yet again because of poor signal issues here...............best go back to valves and books methinks!!

Freeview, like DAB are both relics of the past and I for one think it's wrong of the government to allocate any funds at all to preserving them. DAB is my particular bug bear, probably one of the biggest white elephants in broadcasting history, out of date the day it was launched and despite the fact that better and more efficient systems have come along no one will take the big decision to abandon it for fear of offending both people that bought a DAB radio and actually use it!
The future is very much broadcasting over IP (video over the interweb). In the last 12 months we've seen a massive uptake in it and by this time in 5 years I suspect a majority of TV viewing will be over the net. I would quite happily see freeview / DAB dropped tomorrow if it meant a more universal mobile broadband service.

Broadcasting over IP is only of use to those who have access to a suitably capable network.?..
Our old exchange in our village (nearly 4000 peeps) still can't get speeds above 3-4mb on any day with the wind behind ? and this slows down in the evenings due to the overloaded contention ratios, & BT have told us they aren't interested in doing any updating for a few years yet , same with most other ISP's , they are not interested in LLU's as the numbers( profits) are too small..

so that our future sorted !??

PS .I have freeeview routed tho' an 8 point distribution amp , so will this get affected ?.

PPS... listed building so no dishes ??..

Chris

Well of course the argument is that if you allocate more frequency to mobile broadband you would have better speeds everywhere! It's largely down to stupid rules and regulations and also in fighting between providers that we don't have better 3G coverage today, ofcom need to learn from that and make changes to ensure that the 4G rollout is far more widepread.

As for your broadband Chris, if it slows down in the evening it's more likely to be down to your ISP then the openreach part of the network. I've switched quite a few clients to different providers because of broadband speed issues and in most cases this resolved it. Of course if your exchange is on red for capacity this might not be the case however if it is on red BT should have a plan in place to upgrade it and if they haven't you could certainly kick up about it.

We luddites are somewhat confused! Most people on Freeview or Freesat are so because of either an unwillingness or inability to contribute to the Murdoch empire, or Virgin. Does 4G, whatever that means, mean those in inconvenient areas must have their service jeopardised in favour of improved mobile phone reception?

I think that the impact of 4G in reality will be tiny on Freeview services and obviously it will not affect Freesat at all so you always have that option. 4G will be a massive boon for those of us in rural areas as it brings the possibility of faster broadband which will probably not happen in a very long time via BT. My exchange for instance only has about 1500 people on it and I have almost 4km of copper between me and it which means 5Mbs tops. Given the size of the exchange we're not likely to get fibre any time soon so the only realistic option for faster speeds is 4G. Basically yes a few people might have a couple less freeview channels but in return millions will have the options of superfast broadband and those rural enough not to even get ADSL will finally have broadband for the first time.

Anyway it'll only be the weaker channels that are affected which is mainly those telesales ones, so no great loss there!

As over 38% of UK has below 2MB maximum connection speed, they have no option to use i-Player or anything film wise unfortunately.
I only have 1.3MB here maximum due to location from nearestexchangee.

JohnDotCom wrote:As over 38% of UK has below 2MB maximum connection speed, they have no option to use i-Player or anything film wise unfortunately.
I only have 1.3MB here maximum due to location from nearestexchangee.

That's the point though, make it cheaper and easier for telco's to roll out 4G all of a sudden most of those 38% will gain access to speeds of up to 150mbs (in theory).
Sadly the huge gulf in broadband speeds is never going to be fixed with the fixed network, I honestly believe that only mobile technologies can bridge the gap.

Hi,
Actually wording in the last tome wasn't quite right..
My speeds in the morning and daytime can be reasonable , well for a supposed 8mb line ? , but evenings ??? eeek!!!

& I don't want to start veering off topic too much ..

But speed testing on a BT page lately has been giving me the following..
EG mornings D/L speed 7.72 Max achievable 7.15 ?
Acceptable range .6 - 7.15Mbps
DSL connection 8.13 Mbps
IP profile for line is 7.15Mbps.

But tonight its a 0.46mbps D/L speed, so a tad slow

I am in the processing of mega moaning to my ISP about this but not getting anywhere, as they tell me its an exchange problem,
I'm not with BT they won't talk to me !

I can be online doing OK and within 30mins of the school buses dropping off outside, the speeds plunge every evening!!

Chris

PS . thats enough off topic

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guru wrote:Well of course the argument is that if you allocate more frequency to mobile broadband you would have better speeds everywhere! It's largely down to stupid rules and regulations and also in fighting between providers that we don't have better 3G coverage today, ofcom need to learn from that and make changes to ensure that the 4G rollout is far more widepread.

As for your broadband Chris, if it slows down in the evening it's more likely to be down to your ISP then the openreach part of the network. I've switched quite a few clients to different providers because of broadband speed issues and in most cases this resolved it. Of course if your exchange is on red for capacity this might not be the case however if it is on red BT should have a plan in place to upgrade it and if they haven't you could certainly kick up about it.

Well carrying on slightly OT, a lot of providers will use the old 'its a problem at the exchange' line when they can't be bothered to deal with it or their own network is over capacity. Bottom line is that you are their customer and they are not providing the service, so whether the problems lies with them or their upstream provider it is still their responsibility to sort it out!
I've been with Plusnet for a decade now and part of the reason I stay with them is that when problems occur they are good and getting them sorted rather then just passing the buck.

wouldn't mind if the tossers got 3G working well down here let alone 4G

Where I am freesat is the only option as terrestrial (freeview) is carp (rearrange the letters)

Freesat is not a complete answer as freesat and freeview channel availability differs

Well 3G coverage was mainly held back by bickering and in-fighting, had the telco's been allowed to deploy 3G services in their 2G spectrum allocation then it would have covered pretty much everywhere however T-Mobile and Orange bitched and moaned and prevented the others from being able to do that until very recently. Hopefully OFCOM has learnt from that and will hold the auction for the 4G spectrum in such a way as to stop that from happening again.

Freesat's pretty good on the whole, until they shut off analogue and boosted digital, freesat was the only answer for us. I would have stayed with it except that I hated having the dish on the side of the house!