Could DTT hold the key?

lampsie

Sorry if this has been mentioned before...

Anywhoo, spotted this on the Irish Times, maybe if the ODTR does amend the terrestrial tv licence, eircom could have some competition?

http://www.ireland.com/business/news/2002/0408/news2.htm

Quick snippet:

"The amendment sought by It'sTV would enable it to use one of these multiplex's solely to supply high speed internet services, enhancing the quality and reach of the service. Industry sources said It'sTV's move to amend the draft licence reflected the consortia's change in emphasis from seeking to be mainly a pay television provider to placing internet services at the core of its plan."

Any thoughts?

- lampsie

spongebob

It may theoretically deliver some infill in certain areas.

Remember that DTT has been vapourware for even longer than Broadband ADSL has been in the offing.

Also remember that the sole bidder for the rollout is severely cash strapped ...if not financially stuffed.

Also note that SKY and Eircom have filled the digital gap with minidishes at a reasonable price, and are now about to deliver the return leg (aka interactive services) over bog standard analog lines.

SKY also provide RTE and BBC as I recall, there ain't much else in the offing for DTT apart from those.

Anybody heard of ITV digital.

Now where is the market niche for DTT after all that.

M

longword

DTT doesn't have the bandwidth for the kind of internet services we would be after and certainly not what I'd call broadband. They'd have to build out their own cellular network for the upstream at least - the same kind of expensive task that faces any other wireless operator. Otherwise their target market is granny who sends an email every other week.

3G is more likely to be useful, but I don't see that being much fun either. BT and Vodafone are unlikely to price their 3G services below their UK home market where, thanks to the suicidal license auction, they now need to make a thousand pounds a year clear profit from every mobile punter just to break even..

lampsie

ta for replying

Yep, I accept that DTT has been trundling along for years now (certainly to the advantage of sky digital, 200,000 subscribers here last I heard).

If it was to all suddenly come together though:

Regarding needing cellular access for the upstream - from HackWatch:

"With most conventional DTT systems, such as the OnDigital one in the UK, the back channel is via a phone line. The RTE venture will use low power RF from the set top box to provide the back channel into the internet. This will dramatically simplify the connection to the internet for the user. The technology is being developed by the EU ACTS project, iTTi (for Interactive Terrestrial Television Integration). "

[Info on iTTi here: http://www.bbw.admin.ch/abstracts/abstr2000/abstracts/acts/a99.0014.html]
Can't get any specific speed data per se, but they've a whole bunch of acronyms that sound fast

But as you guys say, its probably all a moot point now...shame really, around 95% of the population could be served by DTT assuming the stuff was installed on RTE's masts

Back to the drawing board eh?

Cheers,
Lampsie.

longword

iTTi isn't designed for building a broadband solution. It's designed to be a simple low-bandwidth back-end for digital TV that can be stuffed into a set-top-box for next to zero cost.

http://www.microswiss.ch/tld2000/pdf/highspeed2a.pdf

You get to choose between building lots and lots of cells or suffering incredibly low bandwidth. Pretty much the standard tradeoff in the world of low-power RF. The bandwidth is of course shared with everyone on the same band within your cell.

lampsie

ah well...

Cheers for the info

Lampsie