Relay tx post DSO - why only 3 muxes?

Behold, a rant:

We all know that, after analogue switch off, relay transmitters will
only carry 3 of the 6 digital muxes.

I've heard various explanations for why they will not carry all 6, but
none of them are convincing.

It seems OfCom offered the commercial multiplex operators spectrum and
assistance to broadcast from 200 transmitters (rather than just 80),
but the commercial multiplex operators declined.

Why is broadcasting regulated in such a wimpish way?! We tell the
Royal Mail that if they want to deliver post to the profitable areas
of the country, they have to deliver post to all of it. I think we
should have a similar attitude to broadcasting.

The commercial multiplex operators declined to pay the cost of
transmitting from smaller relay stations - yet how great would this
cost have been? Some of these relays have a receive aerial, channel
filters, transposer, amplifier, and transmit aerial. These aerials are
nothing special, and the equipment is barely beyond what Bill uses for
one of his communal installations. There are significant overheads of
land, mast, electricity supply etc, but these are already being met,
and in most cases are now shared with mobile phone operators - making
the cost per mux far _lower_ than the cost per channel at the start of
analogue.

It's a shame (maybe a scandal, though there are far more important
things in life!) that OfCom completely wimped out and let mux
operators milk the profits in easy to serve areas, without any
condition to serve the last 10% of the population.


The truth seems to be that the government, regulator, and broadcasters
got together and decided to save/make some money by under-serving 10%
of the UK population. I'm guessing Sky are quite happy about it, as
most people in these areas have given up on terrestrial altogether.


I think regulation has failed consumers in this area.

The alternative, an independent freesat, arrived far too late in the
day, with various channels "missing". Also Freesat equipment is
currently very expensive, making a Sky subscription which you later
cancel a far cheaper alternative (though a PVR will cost more in the
long run). It may be that IPTV eventually fills the vacuum (maybe
iPlayer etc already does to some extent).


How did we sleep walk into this situation? In some parts of the
country a £50 subscription-free Freeview PVR plugs into your existing
aerial and you're set, while in other parts of the country you need a
Sky subscription to get the same channels, and a silly amount of money
to get a PVR for the "free" channels. Over the next few years a
cheaper Freeview PVR will become viable when Halfview arrives in these
areas, but many channels will never be available.


So, a question: if you're stuck on a relay tx, with no digital now and
Halfview due in a few years, what is the best option for a PVR, both
now and in the future?

Cheers,
David.

wrote:

Why is broadcasting regulated in such a wimpish way?! We tell the
Royal Mail that if they want to deliver post to the profitable areas
of the country, they have to deliver post to all of it. I think we
should have a similar attitude to broadcasting.

We do have a similar attitude for the PSBs, we don't make private
courier firms have the universal service obligation, and similarly we
don't force the commercial broadcasters cover the entire kingdom.

wrote:
Behold, a rant:

We all know that, after analogue switch off, relay transmitters will
only carry 3 of the 6 digital muxes.

I've heard various explanations for why they will not carry all 6, but
none of them are convincing.

It seems OfCom offered the commercial multiplex operators spectrum and
assistance to broadcast from 200 transmitters (rather than just 80),
but the commercial multiplex operators declined.

Why is broadcasting regulated in such a wimpish way?! We tell the
Royal Mail that if they want to deliver post to the profitable areas
of the country, they have to deliver post to all of it. I think we
should have a similar attitude to broadcasting.

I broadly agree with you David. However, some points to bear in mind :-

1: The small relay station viewers will get more than the present 4
analogue channels they're stuck with now. Welsh relay viewers will get
C4 'UK' for the first time.

2: There is nothing terribly compelling on the three COM muxes.

3: "You never miss, what you've never had"

4: Quite frankly the 10% of the population affected that are served by
the relays might be lucky to have a service at all. Those relays were
built during the period when the broadcasting culture was 'to serve as
many viewers as practicable'. These days economic pressures would
certainly have resulted in a far smaller TV Tx network if starting from
scratch. Look at the miserably slow roll out of DAB Txs.

Having said all of that, it does indicate what a spineless regulator
Ofcom actually are.

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:20:32 -0700 (PDT),
"
wrote:

It seems OfCom offered the commercial multiplex operators spectrum and
assistance to broadcast from 200 transmitters (rather than just 80),
but the commercial multiplex operators declined.


There is a sound argument that some basic degree of broadcasting is
good thing and should be available to all as a public service - hence
Public Service Broadcasting

For everything else there is Commercial Broadcasting.

Provison of any commercial service is a contract between provider and
consumer. The provider is free to offer the service to who he chooses
at the price he chooses, and the consumer is free to buy from the
provider he chooses or not at all.

Like any commercial enterprise, commercial broadcasting is driven by
its profit margin (or at present by its loss margin). To provide 99+%
coverage for every commercial channel would be so costly that the
advertisng revenue could never pay for it and the channels would soon
go out of business.

Welcome to the Free Market.

On 14 Apr, 12:07, wrote:
On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:20:32 -0700 (PDT),
"
wrote:

It seems OfCom offered the commercial multiplex operators spectrum and
assistance to broadcast from 200 transmitters (rather than just 80),
but the commercial multiplex operators declined.

There is a sound argument that some basic degree of broadcasting is
good thing and should be available to all as a public service - hence
Public Service Broadcasting *

For everything else there is Commercial Broadcasting.

Provison of any commercial service is a contract between provider and
consumer. The provider is free to offer the service to who he chooses
at the price he chooses, and the consumer is free to buy from the
provider he chooses or not at all.

Like any commercial enterprise, commercial broadcasting is driven by
its profit margin (or at present by its loss margin). To provide 99+%
coverage for every commercial channel would be so costly that the
advertisng revenue could never pay for it and the channels would soon
go out of business. *

Welcome to the Free Market.

This is clearly one argument that has been put forward.

It falls down for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the broadcaster (e.g. Dave, Film4, Virgin etc) is not the
multiplex owner, and did not choose the coverage of the multiplex. The
situation is far more complex, with more intermediaries, and it's not
a free market. viewer broadcaster mux operator OfCom I think.
The mux operator, where it is separate from the provider of the
physical broadcast location and equipment, also have a relationship
with that entity - that being the entity that initially bares the
cost.

Secondly, the consumer clearly isn't free to buy from whoever they
wish - they're not actually buying anything, and even if they were,
they have no opportunity to buy the Freeview "product" in these areas.

Thirdly, the idea that the commercial mux operators would go out of
business if required to cover the rest of the UK has not been tested.
They currently cover 80 tx sites. They were expected to cover 200, but
declined. However, the cost of each "slot" on a given mux is in the
millions. The additional equipment costs on smaller relays sites are
in the thousands. The "cannot afford it" argument is untested and,
frankly, unlikely.

Obviously extra expenditure reduces profit (or increases loss), but
I'm not sure Arqiva are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Cheers,
David.

On 14 Apr, 11:54, Mark Carver wrote:

I broadly agree with you David. However, some points to bear in mind :-

1: *The small relay station viewers will get more than the present 4
analogue channels they're stuck with now. Welsh relay viewers will get
C4 'UK' for the first time.

2: There is nothing terribly compelling on the three COM muxes.

3: "You never miss, what you've never had"

Ah yes, all true, but I'm moving from a well served location to a non-
served location. I feel the only option is Sky - I will definitely
miss my subscription-free PVR, and would miss the likes of Yesterday,
Film4, various radio stations, and even Sky News.

Depending on broadband availability, iPlayer etc is a realistic
replacement for some of this!

4: *Quite frankly the 10% of the population affected that are served by
the relays might be lucky to have a service at all. Those relays were
built during the period when the broadcasting culture was 'to serve as
many viewers as practicable'. These days economic pressures would
certainly have resulted in a far smaller TV Tx network if starting from
scratch. Look at the miserably slow roll out of DAB Txs.

You are right. I question the point of digital relays at all - but
would be far happier with the situation if Freesat matched Freeview in
channel choice and availability of equipment.

It hardly requires hindsight to say that Freesat should have launched
simultaneously with Freeview - people were saying it at the time, but
OfCom sat back.

Having said all of that, it does indicate what a spineless regulator
Ofcom actually are.

By design, of course - but what a silly time to be spineless!

Cheers,
David.

wrote:
Behold, a rant:

We all know that, after analogue switch off, relay transmitters will
only carry 3 of the 6 digital muxes.

I've heard various explanations for why they will not carry all 6, but
none of them are convincing.

Isn't it to do with lack of frequencies? Part of the TV band is being
sold off for other uses so it makes sense they can't have 6 channels
transmiting from all 1000 sites.

I'm no frequency planner but I'm not sure they'd be able to provide a
full national 6 MUX service even with the full band of channels 21-69,
they only managed 4 analogue ones

Stuart wrote:
wrote:
Behold, a rant:

We all know that, after analogue switch off, relay transmitters will
only carry 3 of the 6 digital muxes.

I've heard various explanations for why they will not carry all 6, but
none of them are convincing.

Isn't it to do with lack of frequencies? Part of the TV band is being
sold off for other uses so it makes sense they can't have 6 channels
transmiting from all 1000 sites.

I'm no frequency planner but I'm not sure they'd be able to provide a
full national 6 MUX service even with the full band of channels 21-69,
they only managed 4 analogue ones

cough

SFNs ?

/cough

2Bdecided wrote:
snip

Ah yes, all true, but I'm moving from a well served location to a non-
served location. I feel the only option is Sky - I will definitely
miss my subscription-free PVR, and would miss the likes of Yesterday,
Film4, various radio stations, and even Sky News.

So get a FTA satellite receiver, no need for "Sky" (or even Freesat
for that matter...), go find a clue rather than ranting on Usenet!

--
Wikipedia: the Internet equivalent of
Hyde Park and 'speakers corner'...
Sorry, mail to this address goes unread.
Please reply via group.

Jerry wrote:
2Bdecided wrote:
Ah yes, all true, but I'm moving from a well served location to a non-
served location. I feel the only option is Sky - I will definitely
miss my subscription-free PVR, and would miss the likes of Yesterday,
Film4, various radio stations, and even Sky News.

So get a FTA satellite receiver, no need for "Sky" (or even Freesat for
that matter...), go find a clue rather than ranting on Usenet!

In some locations you would also need to get a large amount of high
explosives too.

Bear in mind that relays are traditionally in areas in which signals
from main transmitters are blocked by geography (for example, large
hills). If you happen to be on or below the south slope of a large hill
it's very possible to not have line-of-sight to the 28.2/28.5E cluster
at all. The area of the Highlands where I grew up lost satellite service
completely when Sky moved from 19.1E to 28.2/28.5E - the 19.1E cluster
was high enough that it was just above the brow of the hill, but
28.2/28.5 was just that little bit lower. Not a trace of signal, and
thanks to an inconvenient loch there's not even the possibility of
positioning a dish far enough away to be out of the hill's shadow.

In areas like that (and there are quite a few of them in the Highlands)
signals from relay transmitters - with reduced muxes - are the only
option. Apart from lowering the hills.

--
Angus G Rae Science & Engineering Support Team
Computing Services
University of Edinburgh
The above opinions are mine, and Edinburgh University can't have them