UK Planning Digital Dividend 2 / Freeview Switchoff and Retune in 2018

Sponge Bob

This is partly a move to switch off the 1990s era Freeview signal with its very inefficient use of spectrum and to move all services onto Freeview HD only. I'd expect the original 1990s standard Freeview boxes will be gone off the shelves by end 2014. This is eminently possible in the UK seeing as you only need buy in from around 5 or 6 retailers to make it so. Most operate here too.

The move will free up the higher UHF channels from 48 upwards ( all of group c and d) for sale to mobile operators. However they might nudge more UK TV down into Band A as well. Naturally co ordination with us will be an issue seeing as most of our really powerful transmitters use these frequencies today, Kippure, Truskmore Maghera etc.

The UK is also following EU efforts to standardise the use of the C/D band for mobile techs on an EU wide basis....meaning we must too.

Incidentally I think some of the 'data explosion' predictions behind this ongoing campaign to designate the entire spectrum for Mobile is crazy BS myself. A giant slab of ultra short range frequency is coming into use shortly ( "Wigig" wifi including backward compatibility with current wifi) which will dramatically increase the offload opportunities available to smartphone and mobile device users everywhere.

Sadly there is an abundance of "white space" claptrap in there too.

Anyway Ofcom have published their ideas here and the stubby little Comreg tail will be a twitching away behind the Ofcom dog in no time at all.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/uhf-strategy/statement/UHF_statement.pdf

From a TV point of view.

Same number of channels ( converted to HD and Freeview HD/DVB-T2)
Same number of Multiplexes in the UK as now.

Consumer research commissioned by Ofcom has highlighted the importance of there being a sufficiently large number of free-to-air channels available on the DTT platform to maintain its attractiveness to viewers. Whilst trends towards greater use of efficient transmission and compression standards (e.g. DVB-T2 and MPEG-4, or HEVC) could in the future enable the platform to deliver the same service as today by using less spectrum the wider adoption of HD services may offset this.
Taking these factors into account we consider that, on balance, in order to reduce the risk that a future change of use at 700MHz could prevent the delivery of the important benefits delivered by the DTT platform, we should seek to ensure that the DTT platform has available to it an amount of spectrum that enables it to continue to deliver near-universal PSB coverage and an overall number and coverage of DTT multiplexes similar to today.