We Can Now Forget about National DTT

Sponge Bob

as I explained here

Anyone who thinks a green minister will prioritise DTT and National Broadband over Green Energy had better think again.

conax

I think I am going away to have a cry! That makes for depressing reading.
I can remember years ago we had a meeting with a company I think they were called “digico” about the roll out of a national DTT service, we were all excited when we saw a DTT carrier on Mullaghanish (CH26 I recall) until we enquired about their “concrete” funding, suffice to say there was no DTT roll out.
At the end of the day I think it slips our minds that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Depressed now

Zaphod

Maybe we could give the deflector boys a few bob to retransmit the "trial" DVB-T signal? And bring back Ray Burke as a communications consultation for the new minister. Has he left Mountjoy yet?

watty

I warned ye all before this tease of a trail started that it would come to nothing as there is no plan involving Governement money. No-one else will pay for it.

lawhec

****ing tight-****ed ********! :eek::mad:

Fingleberries

lawhec wrote:

****ing tight-****ed ********! :eek::mad:

I have absolutely no idea what is behind all those asterisks, but I'd probably share the sentiment

Sponge Bob

The entire government allocation for DTT rollout in the national development plan is €4m. Half will be spend this year and half in the next year....on the trials.

Thereafter there is no money....all the way to 2013 when the NDP ends.

RTE have already said they will not roll DTT out , that leaves TV3 as the only hope

lucernarian

Why are they using the full Band IV and V spectrum??? Surely they could pay for the damn rollout if they sold off 62-68 like in the UK? They don't have to sell the other bits, and there would be common free spectrum with the UK.

DMC

Just a thought..... I wonder are they thinking of a cunning plan where they take a lump of the TV licence and pay for it over a number of years? Not unheard of, as RTÉ no longer get 100% of it, they do take a lump out of it for the BCI and their "Sound and Vision" scheme for ILR's and TV3.....

Its the hallmark of Bertie's govt's to lash out all the bad news in the first few months of a 5 year term. Do it now, and we'll all forget about it in 5 years.

Yes, they'll get us to pay for it..... resume swearing!

Mountjoy Mugger

DMC wrote:

Yes, they'll get us to pay for it..... resume swearing!

I nearly did...until I realised you don't mod here! Fupp it.

watty

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Why are they using the full Band IV and V spectrum??? Surely they could pay for the damn rollout if they sold off 62-68 like in the UK? They don't have to sell the other bits, and there would be common free spectrum with the UK.

They do plan to sell off 62-68 after analogue closedown. I presume that means a lot of proposed Band V DTT will change.

watty

Sponge Bob wrote:

The entire government allocation for DTT rollout in the national development plan is €4m. Half will be spend this year and half in the next year....on the trials.

Thereafter there is no money....all the way to 2013 when the NDP ends.

RTE have already said they will not roll DTT out , that leaves TV3 as the only hope

2M won't buy anything more than what they have already.

lucernarian

Is there a commercial demand for rolling out the other 3 multiplexes, even if RTÉ doesn't have the money? The rent seems to be based on MMDS according to the consultation, which is giving a biased advantage to the incumbents IMO.

They should strongly consider reducing the rate for the first 5 years. Also, am I right in saying that MMDS is spectrally more efficient than DTT (i.e. it's using QAM64 etc)?? I am aware that DTT may yet use QAM64 but it might have tighter FEC rates.


Edit: I suppose we won't know if there's demand until the auction process or suchlike goes ahead. I suspect there'll be more interest.

L1011

Our DTT uses 8k, which means 64QAM has effectively the same coverage as 16QAM - no reason not to use it.

lawhec

You could use the the upper end of the UHF broadcast band around the 800 MHz mark for mobile phone use. Telstra in Australia are using the 850MHz band for their HSDPA mobile network, which they are calling "Next-G". Certainly could allow mobile networks to give better coverage from a single base station than in the 2100 MHz band in rural areas.

watty

4G mobile may someday get 600MHz to 860Mhz. We do have a pilot in finglas running at 872MHz. ADSL like latency (more than 10x better than 3G/HSDPA),

maxg

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Is there a commercial demand for rolling out the other 3 multiplexes, even if RTÉ doesn't have the money? The rent seems to be based on MMDS according to the consultation, which is giving a biased advantage to the incumbents IMO.

They should strongly consider reducing the rate for the first 5 years. Also, am I right in saying that MMDS is spectrally more efficient than DTT (i.e. it's using QAM64 etc)?? I am aware that DTT may yet use QAM64 but it might have tighter FEC rates.


Edit: I suppose we won't know if there's demand until the auction process or suchlike goes ahead. I suspect there'll be more interest.

You can calculate by yourself what is possible via DVB-T.
http://www.saschateichmann.de/dvb-t-hf.html

lucernarian

But my question was mainly about if DVB-T on Chorus MMDS would have higher bitrates than UHF BVB-T.

lawhec

watty wrote:

4G mobile may someday get 600MHz to 860Mhz. We do have a pilot in finglas running at 872MHz. ADSL like latency (more than 10x better than 3G/HSDPA),

What exact 4G technology are they testing?

maxg

To_be_confirmed wrote:

But my question was mainly about if DVB-T on Chorus MMDS would have higher bitrates than UHF BVB-T.

The parameters are not depending on the used frequency range.
If the same values are used for UHF you get the same bitrate.

mike65

Silicone Republic on Sep 5th

“I don’t think we’ve any choice but to go digital,” Ryan told siliconrepublic.com. “We’re compelled under EU directives and legislation but also on a strategic public services basis I think it is important.

“We need to have an Irish-owned, platform-independent secure service for digital television. Citizens should not be restricted to just cable and satellite choices but it is in the strategic interest of the State to continue to have a transmission service that is going to be there regardless of market conditions.”

Mike.

lucernarian

maxg wrote:

The parameters are not depending on the used frequency range.
If the same values are used for UHF you get the same bitrate.

What I'm trying to find out is if Chorus use less error correction on their multiplexes than is normally used on terrestrial Band 3/4/5. If they used less error correction, they could fit an extra 7 or 10 mbps on each multiplex.

mrdtv

It isn't actually true that overspill will stop: the post-switchover signals from Divis and other UK stations will be 7dB down on analogue EIRPS, that is 100kw instead of the current analogue 500kW and current digital ERPs of 2.3kW. With the same omnidirectional patterns and same allotments as analogue (21, 24, 27, 31 except the digital dividend channels) the coverage will essentially be the same as analogue UHF: so if you get a goodish analogue signal you will get the PSB UK muxes. An interesting test will be reception from the converted Border DTV stations next year, followed by the Welsh and WEst Country stations such as Presely, Arfon, Blaen-Plwyf and Caradon Hill/Redruth. The Minister clearly hasn't heard of Freesat: by that time it will be going and all UK PSB stations will be a) FTA and b) in HDTV.

Increasingly this will make Ireland look like a third world country in digital television, wholly dependent on pay platform providers and an analogue terrestrial rump.

The current messing about with the trials, the pointless Comreg/BCI multiplex consultation are quite simply a joke. Even Uruguay is now adopting DVB-T and DVB-H and plans to roll it out rapidly.

The perennial issues are a) Who pays for the network b) how does RTE survive this morass c) what is its USP versus cable/satellite/overspill and d) who has got the b**s to take the risk? Six years have passed and sweet FA has happened. The private sector are not interested because of the cable and satellite penetration.

More imaginative solutions would be to look at a one-off surcharge on the RTE licence fee of 100 euros (phased over a few years): this would raise 100 million Euros, sufficient to fund the network and preserve Irish PSB or do something much more radical such as handing the whole thing over to Freeview. That might entail loss of national pride but its all about scale economies and who cares if it gets a result?

There is a clear and present danger that once Freesat launches in 2008 it will become the antenna of choice in Ireland with all the consequences that that entails for Irish broadcasting. Unfortunately the current Minister clearly hasn't thought it through...

conax

mrdtv,

you know, there are a lot of valid points there, if you think about it what really are the advantages of a national DTT service,do we really need it at all? if you look at the back of most DTT LCD TV's it lists the countrys that dont carry DTT, we are in there with most of the 3rd world countries.
Is it just pride and the fact that we want to play with new technology?
Maybe we should just accept freesat and cable operators to provide our national TV services. we have 4 National TV channels why do we want to spend a huge ammount of money on upgrading the system.

maxg

To_be_confirmed wrote:

What I'm trying to find out is if Chorus use less error correction on their multiplexes than is normally used on terrestrial Band 3/4/5. If they used less error correction, they could fit an extra 7 or 10 mbps on each multiplex.

From a chorus box:

OFDM MODE: 8K
MODULATION: QAM64
CODE RATE: 2/3
GUARD INTERVAL: 1/32
BANDWIDTH: 8Mhz
HIERARCHY INFO.: N0NE


For the irish DTT trial:

OFDM MODE: 8K
MODULATION: QAM16
CODE RATE: 3/4
GUARD INTERVAL: 1/32
BANDWIDTH: 8Mhz
HIERARCHY INFO.: N0NE

watty

If Chorus used higher QAM or lower FEC than it would be unwatchable.

The Chorus DTT on MMDS will change to DVB-C and use Thomson boxes.

pa990

watty wrote:

The Chorus DTT on MMDS will change to DVB-C and use Thomson boxes.

Oh hum, I'm not long after buying a DM600T. (i've yet to set it up)

If i had known that they were switching to DVB-C , i'd have gotten a DBox2


for fta broadcasts... obviously


ah well..

when is this change due to take place ?

conax

the best thing to do there is phone Chorus and complain. they might even let you trade it in.

watty

You are only allowed to use Chorus or NTL supplied receivers on UPC's MMDS. Anything else is probably regarded as cable theft.

Techincally if you have your own aerial and own receiver that has *NO* decryption feature (FTA only) you might be able to fight in court that you were not stealing cable. But I doubt it. And if the gear has any kind of CAM HW or SW, you would be doomed.

No idea when they are changing. They are currently trying to get rid of the analogue.

Denethor

For anyone who is interested RTE have been granted Planning permission to upgrade the mast at Mullaghanish serving Kerry and Cork by Kerry County Council.

Details click here pdf

DMC

This appears to be PP for a replacement mast, from 170m to 220m. There are a few main sites with PP notices around the country at present.

Zaphod

Interesting point about the drawbacks of satellite distribution. Just imagine if the only way you could receive digital TV from RTÉ was through a foreign owned company and all the profits from the subscriptions were going overseas. An appalling vista indeed.

pa990

watty wrote:

You are only allowed to use Chorus or NTL supplied receivers on UPC's MMDS. Anything else is probably regarded as cable theft.

Techincally if you have your own aerial and own receiver that has *NO* decryption feature (FTA only) you might be able to fight in court that you were not stealing cable. But I doubt it. And if the gear has any kind of CAM HW or SW, you would be doomed..

watty, i dont mean to cause any offense, but... do you have any experiance of the district courts, Cos i have vast experiance of them, and if a judge doesnt understand something they simply wont convict. "MMDS, CAMS, HW, SW, DreamBox DVB-C DVB-T," that can al be very confusing to a layman / judge

i think it would be best if i stopped this line of conversation, as it may soon contravene board rules.

btw, when is the switch to DVB-C due to start/ end, cos i have heard 3rd hand that clonmel are not long after rolling out DVB-T STB's

DMC

pa990 wrote:

watty, i dont mean to cause any offense, but... do you have any experiance of the district courts, Cos i have vast experiance of them, and if a judge doesnt understand something they simply wont convict. "MMDS, CAMS, HW, SW, DreamBox DVB-C DVB-T," that can al be very confusing to a layman / judge

Any judge would understand an arrangement for a cable company to effectively rent a box to its customers as designed. Any use outside of the T&C, and the defendant is goosed in a court.

And watty understands that

pa990

i have vast experiance of how the court system works.. it is not always common sense, and it not like TV

i would be happy taking my chances.. firstly , IF i was doing something that may be construed as illegal, i would have to be 'found out'

then they would have to go through the procedure of making a complaint to the gardai

The Cabel company would have to make a written complaint

A warrant would have to be obtained for my house

Thhe Gardai would then have to make a file that would satisfy the DPP / chief super

A court appearance

a less than 20% chance of convition (in my experiance) once it reaches court

and having a legal knowledge.. i am aware of a number of loop holes / legal arguments (none of which i am williing to reveal here,, i'm not stupid)





[To MOD: i'm trying to keep this vague and within board rules]

byte

DMC wrote:

This appears to be PP for a replacement mast, from 170m to 220m. There are a few main sites with PP notices around the country at present.

Yeah, seems Truskmore has the go ahead for "replacement of existing 125m mast with new 175m mast and antennaes"

Foggy43

I wonder!

Didn't Sponge Bob cover this Mullaghanish issue. He found an Irish Examiner report that RTE stated the mast needed to be higher due to the effect of wind farms?
Obviously RTE have claimed differently in the planning permisson application.

lucernarian

Good news for those in Sligo Town. I believe TV reception can be weak in parts of the area. And of course nearby NI and mid Co. Donegal viewers may notice the difference.

If RTE are going to the bother of requesting planning permissions, it's very possible that they are doing it on the expectation of extra money from Govt. or from commercial operators.

I remember the thread about interference due to windfarms. There were few windfarms in Cork and Kerry when the application was first granted in 2001. And that application was made when there was plans to launch DTT, much like this year.

As for UK DSO, people have to be getting okay reception to be confident of picking up the QAM64 multiplexes. Our reception is quite snowy on BBC1 and there's interference with UTV. Even with some remedial work, if DTT goes ahead from Mt. Leinster then our analogue will be brought down to ordinary FM sound and perhaps not even colour, not to mention the snow. We may need to get reception from Brougher Mountain (80 miles away!) if there's also interference with Divis.

DMC

pa990 wrote:

i have vast experiance of how the court system works.. it is not always common sense, and it not like TV

Careful, that might be construed as patronising to a bunch of tech heads on a internet forum, but I'll move on to the points...

You forget that the cable co give the customer the box. It is up to the cable co to take the box away. This is where laxity enters. They seldom bother. So, people then think, like a Sky box from day 1, it is theirs to keep and think no more of it, or turn it into a device that we can't discuss here.

Back to the cable co. Normally, a few letters from the cable co requesting the box back should suffice. What you describe is way down the chain of events, it seldom, if ever, gets as far as a judge.

Is holding onto a box that is the property of the cable co worth going to a judge and getting a conviction? Do tell us.

DMC

Foggy43 wrote:

Didn't Sponge Bob cover this Mullaghanish issue. He found an Irish Examiner report that RTE stated the mast needed to be higher due to the effect of wind farms?
Obviously RTE have claimed differently in the planning permisson application.

They did let it lapse after 5 years!

RTÉ NL will have finances available to repair and reconstruct masts as necessary. DSO doesn't change that matter.

lucernarian

How would they get the money to replace at least 2 masts? I implied in my last post that the 2 applications for the mast were in the same years as the consultations on the DTT licences. A funny coincidence.

L1011

RTÉ NL is commercial and profit-making; they will either have the funding or be able to borrow it even if nothing was forthcoming from the parent group. Look at the list of "other users" of Mullaganish - none of them is getting capacity for free!

DMC

Also, TV3 and Today FM provide to the upkeep of masts where they use them.

L1011

And, I would presume, TG4. They are all commercial entities buying access to masts on a commercial basis!

Sponge Bob

byte wrote:

Yeah, seems Truskmore has the go ahead for "replacement of existing 125m mast with new 175m mast and antennaes"

And they spun the national interest yarn along with a lie.

http://www.sligococo.ie/idocsweb/ViewFiles.aspx?docid=265224&format=djvu

page 5 and 6 ( requires an Internet explorer plugin to view)

they state that

"DTT will make use of ...aerials already installed "

but Trusk more is band III not UHF

DTT " does not require the purchase of any additional equipment such as satellite dishes " is not strictly true is it ?

MMDS would be 10 times more expensive

DTT 'would' allow 24 hour news and regional programming but will RTE bring these in ???? I suspect not .

But I am still happy they got planning despite the emotive crap about foreign controlled systems ....now will they actually build the fecking thing or are they blocking the competition ???

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055151643

Elmo

Ok give Mr. Ryan a chance. He has been in the job 3 months. Has the dail resumed yet?

If you want to blame people on the failure to role out DTT then you can look to successive FF government ministers and RTE not one of the first Green Party minister.

Remember Trevor Sargent was sent to prison for failure to pay his TV licence due to the lack of Home Produce Shows on RTE, during the 1980's.

In a year I will let you complain about the Green Minister in a year or so but not after 3 months.

You will not that This department has lost Marine. It is now the Dept. of Communications, Energy and Natural Resourses. Energy was always part of DCMNRs portfoilo hence why should a dept that has drop one of its major divisions get an increase when just by staying static they are getting an increase due to the lose of Marine to Agriculture (Under Junior Minister for Sea Food Trevor Sargent) and while Noel Dempsey has remained on as Minister for Marine (And also Transport).

Sponge Bob

Elmo wrote:

Ok give Mr. Ryan a chance. He has been in the job 3 months. Has the dail resumed yet?

Ryan shadowed this department for 5 years on the front bench. Dempsey was equally stupid coming straight from education with no background in comms at all.

If you want to blame people on the failure to role out DTT then you can look to successive FF government ministers and RTE not one of the first Green Party minister.

I do , its just that Ryan does not have the political or intellectual werewithal to do anything about it.

Remember Trevor Sargent was sent to prison for failure to pay his TV licence due to the lack of Home Produce Shows on RTE, during the 1980's.

trevor is not a cabinet minister is he ??? A pity , he towers over Ryan.

You will not that This department has lost Marine. It is now the Dept. of Communications, Energy and Natural Resourses. Energy was always part of DCMNRs portfoilo hence why should a dept that has drop one of its major divisions get an increase when just by staying static they are getting an increase due to the lose of Marine to Agriculture (Under Junior Minister for Sea Food Trevor Sargent) and while Noel Dempsey has remained on as Minister for Marine (And also Transport).

Less for Ryan to do not that it makes any difference. As soon as Ryan lied about the broadband stats last week that was it for me .

I have written him off in full.

Elmo

Ryan shadowed this department for 5 years on the front bench. Dempsey was equally stupid coming straight from education with no background in comms at all.

As a small party in the dail the Greens do not have enought TD's have a full front bench each with a different department to shadow. I am sure they must have also spent time as the green party's spokeperson for different departments.

I do , its just that Ryan does not have the political or intellectual werewithal to do anything about it.

Four months, give it a year. He has alot more to do then any FF minister. And lets face it FF ministers fool you into thinking that they have political and intellectual werewithal. No other party can get away with that.

trevor is not a cabinet minister is he ??? A pity , he towers over Ryan.

No. He is the Junior Minister for Sea Food in the Department of Agriculture.

As soon as Ryan lied about the broadband stats last week that was it for me .

We really should write off everyone in the Dail so.

Sponge Bob

Elmo wrote:

Four months, give it a year. He has alot more to do then any FF minister. And lets face it FF ministers fool you into thinking that they have political and intellectual werewithal. No other party can get away with that.

More than Harney or Cowan , I think not somehow.

Ryan is in every way the most junior member of the entire cabinet .

This is a tragedy for any communications related issues in Ireland that require political will and nous and where a sophisticated and nuanced approach may sometimes be required . Ryan is utterly incapable of any of that .

Surely the greens have someone else ...have they ???

Elmo

This is a tragedy for any communications related issues in Ireland that require political will and nous and where a sophisticated and nuanced approach may sometimes be required . Ryan is utterly incapable of any of that .

This our problem in Ireland with think that Cowan and Harney are sophisticated. Ha Ha Ha Ha. Harney shouldn't have a job.

Ryan is in every way the most junior member of the entire cabinet .

Two of the most important departments where given to the greens only no one has the brains to understand that Environment and Communications are the future of any country. FF have been a disgrace over the last 10 years. Wasting our time and money trying to look sophisticated. They should have put more effort into their departments.

By the way what would Minister Sophistication Dempsey be doing if he was still in charge?

Sponge Bob

Elmo wrote:

Two of the most important departments where given to the greens only no one has the brains to understand that Environment and Communications are the future of any country.

While I have no issues with Gormley I cannot possibly be expected to thank the green party for the shallow scraping of the gene pool from which Ryan was produced, you would think that they had nobody else available ( oops) .

By the way what would Minister Sophistication Dempsey be doing if he was still in charge?

Lying and Golfing which is all he ever did anywhere he went . Replaced by Lying and Cycling it seems, and to much effect