Ireland is sooo primitive .

Sponge Bob

1. MMDS is only really used by Ireland and our peers in Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Ukraine any more. Elsewhere the spectrum has been retasked for BB in developed countries or is awaiting retasking after the MMDS was dumped for satellite .

2. Finland has 99.9% DTT coverage now. DVB-H is live now, not on trial.

Remaining 0.1% of population mainly in Lappland will be covered by satellite broadcasts.

3. Norway will turn off analogue in 2009, DTT is rolling out.

4. Sweden shuts down Feb 2008, less than a year from now with 99.8% DTT coverage by then.

Ireland barely has 99.8% analogue coverage and relies on community deflectors to complete the national analogue network for as much as 0.5% of the population.

DTT in Ireland is probably that 'nasty dose' you caught the last time you were in Galway.

Finland Norway and Sweden can, on the other hand, provide digital coverage north of the Artic Circle and on oil rigs way out in the North sea.

God we really are an insufferable arrogant smug bunch of ****bag technological primitives here compared to the developed world we pretend to emulate

DMC

The month in rehab did you the world of good, Britney.

Nice haircut, btw!

Sponge Bob

**** rehab! I must also crank up a rude and offensive sig now that you reminded me of it DMC, ta.

DMC

No problem.

Going back to your original post, spot on. Can't fault the argument.

Sponge Bob

The Swedes website,

http://www.digitaltvovergangen.se/pagenl.asp?guid=B0460454-F638-457E-9ECA-46A9C5DD6140

In May 2003, the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament) decided that Sweden is to make the transition to digital terrestrial TV broadcasts and that analogue terrestrial broadcasts will cease. The switchover is to take place in all of Sweden before February 1, 2008. Digitisation is a natural result of global change and also a step towards improved TV. Digital technology provides better sound and picture. Digital signals also take up less space than analogue signals, which means that important frequencies are freed up, hence providing opportunities for more channels and services.
Digital TV broadcasting in Sweden today

In Sweden there is 4,2 million households receiving TV broadcasts via cable, satellite, broadband and the terrestrial network. In Sweden, all satellite broadcasts are already digital and digitisation has begun for cable broadcasts. Digital terrestrial broadcasts started in 1999. Since then digital and terrestrial signals have been simulcast in the terrestrial network. The terrestrial broadcasts are transmitted over 54 large and 600 smaller transmission stations that make up the terrestrial network. The stations are owned and managed by Teracom AB. As of April 2006, the digital terrestrial broadcasts cover 98 percent of Swedish households. Once the switchover is carried out, the digital terrestrial network will cover 99,8 percent of Swedish households, the same as for the analogue terrestrial network.
Implementation of the switch-over

Based on a government decision, the switch over will be carried out in five phases. The first phase was carried out in the autumn of 2005 and now the rest of Sweden will gradually switch over in four phases during 2006 and 2007.

654 DTT transmitters to be completed by 2007 (its probably well over 600 as I write ) and we are fannying around with 2 . The country is 6 times larger than Ireland indicating that we would need a bit over 100 transmitters to get 99.8% coverage same as Sweden ( bar a few valleys in national parks)

The Swedes have good coverage north of the Artic Circle. which is more that TV3 can say about the west of Ireland

What a complete disaster this country and parliament and government is when it comes to any form of technological rollout or vision or concept of universal service

The Cush

Sponge Bob wrote:

1. only Ireland and the Ukraine use MMDS any more.

and Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India.

Solair

and Spain!

I'm sure there are other places using it too. There's nothing particularly primative about MMDS! It's got significantly more capacity than DVB-T when it's digital. UPC now has 100% digital MMDS in Ireland too, there's no more analogue.

Ireland does have an odd scenario where by most households have access to multichannel television already via Cable, Satellite or Digital MMDS. Most European countries have relatively poor cable and satellite uptake with the majority of homes still receiving television directly from transmitters.

Digital TV penetration in Ireland's actually at quite respectable levels, we just don't watch much tv straight off air anymore. Sky digital and digital MMDS has driven this figure even lower to the point that really the only people watching TV directly off air are those who, lets face it, aren't the most attractive commercial market i.e. mostly either people who don't watch much tv thus choose not to opt for sat, cable, mmds, iptv etc. or, the poorer/elderly etc who may not have the disposable income to upgrade to DTT anyway, even if it's the BBC's freeview model.

Thus there hasn't really been a whole lot of interest in DTT from commercial operators, nor from RTÉ. ITV digital's disasterous launch didn't help the industry feeling about it much either.

Launching late also means we have the possibility of using MPEG4 rather than MPEG2, and could actually end up with a much nicer, higher capacity, technically superior product that can actually hold its own against UPC, Sky etc rather than some half-baked system that would largely be a mirror of existing analogue terrestrial services.

I wouldn't write Ireland's TV sophisitcation off purely on the basis of a lack of DVB-T !! It's one of the most sophisitcated and highly developed tv markets in Europe.

Yes, the Government *could* and *should* do a lot more about pushing digital TV, but on the other side of the argument, there's a lot of nonsense going on in the industry about DTT too. It's almost a digital dogma. I'd rather see a good service rolled out when it's ready than rushing to push the latest new toy down the throats of the general public on the basis that if you don't adopt it your TV service will simply be switched off.

DAB in the UK is a prime example of "digital dogma". It's a primative, obsolete product that provides absoltuely woeful audio quality e.g. it now has music stations in glorious mono at low bit rates!

Fingers crossed, we end up with a decent service once it does finally roll out!!

Sponge Bob

The Cush wrote:

Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India.

These are our peer group , yes. First post amended.

As for US Canada and Australia from that list ( I snipped them ) a lot of that spectrum is used for BB nowadays not for TV services. Australia seems to have dumped MMDS for satellite .

The US story from 1999 many moons ago

Sprint Dashes For Wireless Broadband



By Ed Lopez
August 16, 1999
Wireless Week

When Timothy Sutton was named president of Sprint Corp.'s new Broadband Wireless Group last week, he knew he faced formidable challenges: stitching together a wireless network and integrating five recently acquired companies that cost the company $1.3 billion.
Undaunted, Sutton is approaching his agenda with the relish of someone who's found something of value in an obscure corner of an attic and is eager to show its worth. Describing the multichannel multipoint distribution service spectrum that Sprint has picked up since April, Sutton says: "This is a crown jewel that has been so overlooked by people."
The MMDS licenses will give the firm up to 200 megahertz of spectrum in more than 65 markets across the nation, covering about 30 million households.
The two core products for Sprint's wireless broadband network will be high-speed Internet access and its new Integrated On-Demand Network, a full package of phone services that the company also will deploy through wireline access such as digital subscriber line. Other options for using its licenses are being considered as well.
The recent purchases of MMDS licenses by big-name telecom players such as Sprint and MCI WorldCom has given MMDS credibility and momentum as a method to deliver high-speed data services.

The Lithuanian operator you referred to got itself a DTT licence recently ( Mikrovisatos ) .

Ulsterman 1690

The Cush wrote:

and Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India.

Dunno about the other countries but I know the US are definitely phasing out MMDS (or may have already done so)

As for the original title of this thread come on be fair

At least theyre ahead of Bhutan

Solair

The main reason for the existance of MMDS in Ireland though was to provide UK terrestrial TV to non cable areas. It is a rather odd situation. MMDS survived as, until recently there were few reasonable alternatives.

Deflector service is ok in some areas, unreliable in others and MMDS provided a handful of extra channels as an "added bonus".

In other markets MMDS was wiped out by digital satellite, particularly in the US. Digital Sat is just vastly superior.

In Ireland, I can only assume the same is already happening as Sky now can provide pretty much everything without any of the technical limitations imposed by MMDS.

As the dish network etc rolled out in the US, MMDS subscription numbers plummeted and it basically died out and the spectrum was reused for broadband.

I can see the same happening here rather rapidly.

Sponge Bob

Solair wrote:

In other markets MMDS was wiped out by digital satellite, particularly in the US. Digital Sat is just vastly superior.

Absolutely correct Solair but SKY is an 'accidental' <cough> overspill from another state and not something we planned or designed ourselves meaning we are still crap and useless and directionless unlike Rupert Murdoch . We did not elect Rupert to organise these things for us though.

My personal opinion is that we probably should not roll out DTT at ALL because we already have 25% household penetration of the Astra Digital platform ..if not more.... and a trained installer base.

Solair

It's a bit similar in the UK though. Sky originally launched as a semi pirate alternative to the totally failled UK-based British Satellite Broadcasting, the over inflated state licenced system. Sky offered a service using cheaper technology i.e. PAL over hired space on Astra and BSB failed abysmally.

Borders are all fuzzy with satellite Sky digital's specifically aimed at Ireland though.. and always has been.

And sky digital's current platform's a lot more than overspill! It's got significant Irish infrastructure, interactivity, sales team, helplines, installers, rights to programming etc etc..

Regardless of who licences it, it's very much part of the Irish tv distribution system.

It's all the EU !!

Sure Canal+ has similar operations into Belgium etc

Ulsterman 1690

Absolutely correct Solair but SKY is an 'accidental' <cough> overspill from another state and not something we planned or designed ourselves

The BBC broadcast free to air on the Astra 2D satellite

$ky doesnt come into it

Sponge Bob

Ulsterman, SKY acquired at least half of of their customers here in Ireland at a time when the BBC and ITV was within the SKY Videoguard wrapper . Your point of course applies to the more recent installs o Ulsterman , yes I had noticed .

A less crap country than Ireland would SOMEHOW have officially NOTICED that it was WITHIN the Astra footprint and started to plan for and allow for that.

All our crap primitive plans are AS IF Astra was not beaming at us , on the official level that is . How can you NOT notice this fact and then try to replicate what Astra does on the ground as if Astra simply were not there .

Primitive and stupid and duplicitous , and this from a country that never finished an analoue PAL network but left its own citizens scrambling around to find DIY solutions for its systemic failure before criminalising them in the early 1990s .

GaAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhh

JHMEG

This is fairly simple... who did you vote for in the last 2 general elections? There is a good chance the other parties would have done better, simply as this lot have done so bad.

Many aspects of this country are prehistoric (eg drink laws, but the back benchers scuppered any change there). The dinosaurs have to go. I know who I won't be voting for in the next general election (and I didn't vote for them in the last either).. for the sake of DTT and for a whole lot more.

lucernarian

I don't think any political has given much consideration to the DTT issue. From what I can see, with the current FF minister who has no choice but to do some token thing about it and a talk I had with an FF senator on the issue of RTE on satellite, It's a case of FF 1, other parties 0 on talking about this issue for me.

There are too many pressing concerns to the government about DTT, which is why they could well plug for the private, regulated Freeview model, to offload the greatest possible amount of responsibility and financial commitment.