Comreg begins review of MMDS Spectrum

The Cush · 14-05-2010 9:11pm #1

Comreg today published the following on its website Information Notice - Call for input on potential uses and licensing options of the 2.6 GHz spectrum band.

This is the start of the review of MMDS spectrum as required by the current regulation in the run in to licence expiry/renewal in 2012 and 2014.

BaconZombie · 14-05-2010 11:43pm

Hopefully they will unreg it.

The Cush wrote: »

Comreg today published the following on its website Information Notice - Call for input on potential uses and licensing options of the 2.6 GHz spectrum band.

This is the start of the review of MMDS spectrum as required by the current regulation in the run in to licence expiry/renewal in 2012 and 2014.

paulm17781 · 14-05-2010 11:56pm

I fear Comreg will keep it (at UPCs request) and this is Comreg undertaking a review to keep themselves busy.

Solair · 15-05-2010 12:01am

It looks like the number of MMDS subscriptions is dropping off quite rapidly

http://www.comstat.ie/data/data.472.1201.data.html

Although, there are still over 70,000 active subs.

You'd just have to wonder how economically viable the technology is.

MMDS just seems to have nothing going for it anymore.

Analogue MMDS TV subscriptions (Q3 2009) 2,546 ..
Digital MMDS TV subscriptions (2009 Q1) 81,653, (2009 Q2) 78,880, (2009 Q3) 75,902 (The last 3 Quarters available)

Source : Comstat (Comreg)

Digital cable Q3 2009 : 254,280
Analogue cable Q3 2009 : 164,203

Total cable Q3 2009 : 418,483

Pay satellite TV (Sky Digital?) 592,270
Q3 2009.

FTA Satellite: Unknown.
UK Freeview: Unknown.

Total Cable/Sat market 2009 Q3 : 1,010,753
Total MMDS market 2009 Q3 : 78,448

Total Pay TV : 1,089,201

MMDS as % of Pay TV market (Q3 2009) 7.2% !

Tiny market share!

glic83 · 22-05-2010 11:40pm

mmds hasnt really anything to offer its very frustrating when the people 2 mins away can have 50 meg bb,a hd box and pvr available to them and all you can get is mmds,mmds is a dead horse

watty · 23-05-2010 9:06am

MMDS problems:

Chorus and NTL started changing to Digital far too late and too slowly due to shortage of money.
Chorus and NTL chose incompatible systems for MMDS
Most of the Chorus Analogue was poorly engineered. Jarrold boxes are junk.
Comreg actually reduced the spectrum making it less competitive to Sky.
Sky Analogue used a larger dish but Sky Digital uses a similar size dish (slightly bigger).
UPC looked for spectrum (which is available and unused) to provide Fixed Wireless like Metro via MMDS dishes along side Digital TV. Comreg refused.
Changing to MPEG4 needs everyone to get a new box that uses a mast that is backward compatible and then change overnight. There is not the spectrum to have some premium MPEG4 or HD channels and change gradually like cable.
There is no economic way to change the ex-Chorus areas and ex-NTL MMDS areas to use the same digital system.
It made some sense and was originally for basic UK channels, but since start of change over to Digital MMDS the situation changed: BBC, ITV, C4 and Five have more channels on Satellite than MMDS can carry and The Basic UK channels are now all free on Satellite.
Poorer quality than Satellite
Though smaller dish than Sky, it often needs a large pole/mast. Sat dish can mount low down.

Given that Digital MMDS has about 4x as many channels as Pay DTT could have and is dying, how likely would pay DTT to succeed?

glic83 · 23-05-2010 11:22am

is there any regulation to stop upc offering channels via sat like they do in other countries?

watty · 23-05-2010 1:29pm

Anyone including UPC can offer a Satellite service.
But what would they offer that isn't already either free on Satellite or on Sky's package?

There is talk of a new Sat provider for UK/Ireland, "Real TV". Other European countries often have more than one pay TV provider on satellite.

We don't really have any much Indigenous payTv, (TV3e, City Channel etc), almost all our payTV is UK PayTV. The UK really only has choice of Virgin (Cable), Sky (satellite) and small number of channels on DTT (Top Up TV).

glic83 · 23-05-2010 4:11pm

well if they could offer it at good prices and included hd channels id say a lot of people who are on mmds would gladly take that option over mmds,but suppose it would depend on prices as compared to sky

Freddie59 · 24-05-2010 1:38pm

watty wrote: »

[*]UPC looked for spectrum (which is available and unused) to provide Fixed Wireless like Metro via MMDS dishes along side Digital TV. Comreg refused.

So they refused them a licence for wireless Broadband? WTF??

The Cush · 24-05-2010 11:03pm

watty wrote: »

UPC looked for spectrum (which is available and unused) to provide Fixed Wireless like Metro via MMDS dishes along side Digital TV. Comreg refused.

Freddie59 wrote: »

So they refused them a licence for wireless Broadband? WTF??

I assume the spectrum you are referring to is the 2300-2400 MHz band which is the subject of an ongoing consultation and which UPC wanted gifted to them following their Wireless Broadband Trial in the band.

UPC has almost 200 MHz of spectrum already for MMDS and not very efficiently used. With the review of the MMDS spectrum now started I think it would be safe to assume that some of it will be allocated to other uses, at which time UPC may consider bidding for its new use which could be wireless broadband with MMDS.

watty · 24-05-2010 11:45pm

"mobile" operators will get it and Comreg will split the spectrum up and forbid a single operator having it all. Which will limit speed to barely better than 3G.

It should be mandated as Outdoor Aerial Fixed Wireless only. That gives about x16 more capacity than Mobile WiMax or LTE.

Most 3G data users are using it in fixed location. Crazy.

The Cush · 02-11-2011 5:24pm

Comreg today published a consultation and consutants report on future use of 2.6 GHz radio spectrum band

http://www.comreg.ie/publications/consultation_on_future_use_of_2_6_ghz_radio_spectrum_band.583.103962.p.html
http://www.comreg.ie/publications/consultancy_report_-_technical_and_economic_study_on_multipoint_microwave_distribution_systems_and_next_generation_mobile_broadband_services_in_the_band_2500_-_2690_mhz.583.103963.p.html

icdg · 03-11-2011 12:08am

The big thing to note from that is that Comreg is minded to extend the MMDS licences for ex-NTL areas to April 2014, the same date that the ex-Chorus licences expire.

I only had a glance at the main report, however, as I feared the consultants seem to be telling Comreg to send MMDS customers to Sky (or Freesat) after that date, though Comreg itself appears to hold open the possibility that UPC would be allowed to compete in the competition for use of the spectrum and to use it for MMDS if they won.

Solair · 03-11-2011 12:55am

Could MMDS be moved over to DVB-T by launching some extra MUXes on UHF.

bk · 03-11-2011 1:03pm

Lets be honest, UPC don't really care about MMDS either. They have been doing the absolute minimum with it for years and letting people switch over to Sky with little struggle.

It is all about HFC cable and triple play with Broadband for UPC now. If you aren't on cable they don't care.

Lets let MMDS die and let 2.6GHz be used for LTE as it will across the whole of Europe.

If UPC want an infill service, perhaps they would do better by switching to the new KaSat. They could start out using MPEG4 for all channels. It isn't as outrageous as it initially sounds, UPC already do sat services in other countries in Europe.

Using 2.6GHz for crappy broadcast TV service is a waste of good bandwidth that would be better used for data services.

watty · 03-11-2011 2:25pm

No way to fit MMDS on UHF. It's doomed. The frequency is the Pan European LTE frequency, to allow European roaming too. That's what Comreg will decide.

Comreg wouldn't let UPC have adjacent spectrum for Broadband as they want to make it useless to UPC. So the MMDS spectrum and the adjacent spectrum will be auctioned for LTE. UPC won't seriously bid against potential LTE operators, so that's a "sop".

bk · 03-11-2011 3:04pm

watty wrote: »

UPC won't seriously bid against potential LTE operators, so that's a "sop".

Well they might decide to get into LTE mobile comms themselves. They have talked about wanting to get into quad play services before.

icdg · 03-11-2011 8:36pm

Solair wrote: »

Could MMDS be moved over to DVB-T by launching some extra MUXes on UHF.

UPC MMDS is already (and always has been) DVB-T in ex-Chorus regions.

If you mean could the service be replaced by a terrestrial service (at which point it wouldn't be MMDS any more), well I think that one's been well and truly done and dusted at this stage. Nobody wants the pay-TV licence on DTT. And it would only have less than a third of the channels that digital MMDS offers, really only about 20-25 channels.

Been reading some more of the report. Bearing in mind that it seems to have been written with the killing off of MMDS as its objective, there are some stats it does present:

- MMDS numbers have declined by about 35% over the past three years.
- About a third of the remaining MMDS customers are those on Communal MMDS systems which number about 20,000.

The consultants estimate MMDS numbers being down to about 35,000 by 2019, if MMDS continues.

The consultants don't really seem to address one particular concern. If as is proposed MMDS is switched off, it is effectively gifting all of UPC's MMDS subscriber base to Sky. I personally think there are major competition issues with gifting Sky a monopoly. Also they are effectively granting Sky a monopoly over pay-TV in rural areas by terminating the licence of its only competitor without any replacement.

(Of course, the cynic in me says that this will make the DTT pay-TV licence more attractive overnight...)

lucernarian · 05-11-2011 1:16am

I don't think the decline of UPC will be linear or even proportional year-on-year. The projections were one of the reasons I felt the report was heavily leaning on towards the scrapping of MMDS. The dual tech nature of MMDS and how the customers throughout large swathes of east Meath and North Dublin (along with Galway and Waterford) now have access to DVRs, means customer losses in those areas will not be so significant now as they were in the 2000s. As for DVB-T MMDS, Sky already offers significant advantages over MMDS so if customers are still with MMDS, it's because their building management or landlord only allows a communal MMDS aerial (like in a couple of cases in Drogheda) or some other strong reason. The only new advantage Sky can offer is a reduction in price which is unlikely or else putting the ITV channels on the EPG. So further losses from UPC are not so likely IMO.

There are some places where large housing estates are supplied with the one MMDS aerial and also are broadband enabled through high bandwidth microwave links so it will be interesting to see what UPC will do with those customers.

And the report only mentions in passing that many of the MMDS customers are still in urban areas. E.g. various towns across north Co. Dublin (Except much of Malahide and Swords), much of Navan and Trim and Ashbourne and also the entirety of Drogheda and Dundalk, over 70000 people living in those last two. Still plenty of MMDS aerials in Drogheda and to a lesser extent Dundalk.

watty · 05-11-2011 11:04am

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I

There are some places where large housing estates are supplied with the one MMDS aerial and also are broadband enabled through high bandwidth microwave links so it will be interesting to see what UPC will do with those customers.

The report mentions a 1/3rd are communal. Those can be fed by Microwave link on a higher band (already LOS and and a base station) or even a satellite head end.

Comreg isn't going to worry about "giving" maybe 5,000 to 25K customers to Sky. Don't forget a lot of MMDS people got it originally for UK tV that's now FTA on satellite. It's already uncompetitive where people really want Pay TV. I'd suspect Sky would gain less than 10K customers from MMDS closure.

Also Comreg would see it as making a fictional hypothetical pay DTT market more attractive.

The number of people allowed MMDS (a dish) but not Sky (a dish) is quite small. Sky increasingly doing communal apartment systems.

UPC's quad play plans I'd be sure are to be an MVNO on Mobile (more like Tesco than AnPost as they would have back end infrastructure). I can't see UPC rolling out LTE themselves. In any case that would not be MMDS.

Comreg consultations are nothing of the sort. They are documents to get "reaction" so they can handle the opposition to what ever they already decided. Comreg decided long ago to ditch MMDS. But they won't until the operators are really ready to bid on the Spectrum. Which might be end of 2013 or early 2014 rather than the originally proposed early 2012 in UK.

There is no advantage to Comreg to clear UPC of it early. At one stage more than x3 of the MMDS was Chorus vs NTL. NTL completely changed theirs to DVB-c from analogue. Chorus had only done a partial DVB-T rollout. The fact that UPC continued the DVB-T rollout on the Ex-Chorus part was about Licence compliance rather than a huge commitment to MMDS.

UPC tried three different methods of adding Broadband to MMDS.
1) Digiweb Mobile (but that effectively died Autumn 2008 due to dried up funds to roll it out nationwide. Blame the Property speculators & AngloIrish Ponzi scheme)
2) Additional Spectrum and off the shelf two way MMDS solutions. (Comreg would not release the spectrum)
3) Digiweb Metro (no assurance of L.O.S, might not be same mast etc)

So about end of 2008 I would think UPC decided MMDS was doomed. Hence no DVB-T PVRS, the ex NTL part can use the standard UPC boxes.

Changing over the DVB-T part to DVB-c is horribly expensive. You have to get EVERYONE in a particular transmitter area a DVB-c box and get it hooked up at same time as existing box and then early one morning switch off the DVB-t and turn on the DVB-c. The call support and customer support costs are huge apart from all the new boxes and mast gear.

Comreg will do what ever they have already decided.

icdg · 05-11-2011 4:20pm

watty wrote: »

Comreg will do what ever they have already decided.

Agreed - and it looks like they've already decided to close MMDS in April 2014.

lucernarian · 06-11-2011 12:28pm

watty wrote: »

The report mentions a 1/3rd are communal. Those can be fed by Microwave link on a higher band (already LOS and and a base station) or even a satellite head end.

I'm merely expressing nerdy curiousity. Apart from the network connecting different towns to cabled DVB-C from UPC (I think Mullingar is an example), I didn't think UPC have used microwave links to supply DVB-C backends yet. Not to anywhere as small as a housing estate of e.g. 120 houses. I imagine purely in terms of spectrum/capacity for all the TV muxes that it won't be so cheap to implement.

watty · 06-11-2011 12:45pm

For 120 houses it's economical. They'd use a 2 way link and combo DOCSIS+DVB-C headend fed by ethernet (no encoding, just modulation) at the Estate. Then they can offer 100Mbps broadband and phone. Even potentially "switched DVB-c" (some mux slots not dedicated but switched according to demand (at UPC HQ feed to the link), with only 200 houses you don't need 350 simultaneous channels! Only maybe 180 as many people watch the same channels). Both of which are making more money than TV in the longer term.

The equipment is off the shelf and is the SAME as what they are using to link Broadband to MMDS fed estates.

Solair · 06-11-2011 4:02pm

The problem is that Chorus in particular burnt its bridges with a lot of customers due to poor quality MMDS and lack of cable in urban areas.

I know a lot of areas in Cork City, even quite close to the city centre that aren't properly cabled or are on MMDS (well, at this stage they're 90%+ on Sky and have forgotten that UPC exists, or think that it's some half-baked platform involving Jerrold boxes.)

I'm not sure that the UPC MMDS subscriber base is really worth all that.

They should cable the areas that can be cabled / should have been cabled in the first place and then just perhaps withdraw from rural areas where they are unable to provide a competitive product.

Many smaller towns also have MAN fibre networks which could be used to provide a cable service without any issue. There's really no point in attempting to provide MMDS services in these areas as it does not provide broadband and does not provide a competitive TV line up (certainly not in the case of the ex Chorus platform anyway).

I would say UPC's choices are pretty bleak when it comes to MMDS. It's a dead-end platform.

Comreg begins review of MMDS Spectrum

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