Freeview may disappear in bandwidth shuffle

The United Kingdom’s, Freeview terrestrial-digital TV, could be seriously threatened by new Ofcom proposals. That is the claim of a D.T.G., Digital Television Group

Ofcom is in the British regulator of television, basically plans to restrict the frequencies that broadcasters use, and move the resulting spare capacity, to simulcast MPEG4 HDTV channels. It may also wish to use this new free capacity for other new MPEG4, non HDTV, broadcasting.

This lack of direction, and qualification, by Ofcom has pushed the DTG to issue a statement that in part, says: “We welcome Ofcom’s initial proposals for a possible UK terrestrial HDTV service. However, regrettably, we do not consider that they will lead to a successful long-term FTA HD platform in the UK. They may, left unmodified, jeopardise the future universality and competitive attractiveness of the main Public Sector Broadcasting services.”

Not unreasonably, it seems, the DTG have called for an allocation of some of the temporary bandwidth, which will be available following the end of analogue TV, to be made available to Freeview, this would then make the changeover to MPEG4 a simpler process.

At the end of this bandwidth ‘lease’ the available capacity would then be made available for sale, quite possibly to the cellular phone companies.

Story link: Freeview may disappear in bandwidth shuffle