Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Almost a Million UK Homes Will Suffer 4G TV interference

Posted by samzenpus on from the clear-the-channel dept.

First time accepted submitter Nick Fel writes "As the UK nears the end of a lengthy digital TV switch-over, the sale of the analogue TV spectrum for 4G mobile phones will disrupt digital TV in almost a million homes. Affected homes will be issued with a filter or required to upgrade to satellite or cable, and in extreme cases may be granted funding to find their own solution."

28 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:"extreme cases" by jaymz666 · · Score: 4, Funny

    a dvd disc? from the atm machine?

  2. Re:"extreme cases" by kimvette · · Score: 2

    Yes, which will prompt you for your PIN number of course.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  3. Really? by philip.paradis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA: 'Homes that cannot receive these alternative platforms will receive up to £10,000 each to "find a solution".'

    Really? £10,000? Is television so critical that people will die without it? At today's exchange rates, that USD $15,760. Wow.

    --
    Write failed: Broken pipe
    1. Re:Really? by SydShamino · · Score: 4, Informative

      Keep in mind that A) British people pay for their broadcast TV, so the government will presumably recoup this expense, and B) British people seem to really love their TV, from how much they're willing to invest in making it good.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    2. Re:Really? by Poltron+Inconnu · · Score: 2

      I believe in the UK they pay an annual license fee to watch tv broadcasts. So even though it's not 'critical', they'd better make sure they're providing the service. And if they've done something to disrupt that service themselves, they need to go to extreme lengths to fix it where needed. Oh, and television serves as an emergency notification system. So yes, some people might die without it.

    3. Re:Really? by jrmcferren · · Score: 5, Informative

      The government isn't paying for this stuff, it is being paid for by the mobile phone companies.

      --
      sudo mod me up
    4. Re:Really? by Lincolnshire+Poacher · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The government isn't paying for this stuff, it is being paid for by the mobile phone companies.

      True, the money is dues to be sourced from the winning bid for the 4G licenses, but the money is flowing into the Government coffers and being redirected into this effort. It is therefore money unavailable for other, more worthy, projects.

      My solution: the Government should tell TV Licensing to refund the license fee payments to those affected and tell the individuals to listen to the radio if they desperately need stale news reports on the hour.

      Meanwhile, funnel that money into Internet access projects for rural areas.

    5. Re:Really? by Bert64 · · Score: 2

      Even if you are in such an area where you are unable to receive tv, im sure you will still get tv licensing hassling you constantly for not having a license...

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    6. Re:Really? by Hadlock · · Score: 2

      Britons are required by law to pay a "TV licence" every year, which is about $100, IIRC.
       
      In the states, FCC law overrides homeowner's association ironclad rules about mounting TV antennas on your roof. I suspect for most people the cost reimbursement would be around $200 for a single household, while high rise condominiums might be eligible for $10,000 to refit the entire building. Many buildings in London are three story residences, so you could be looking at $600-1200 to service a building that has three units.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    7. Re:Really? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Seems reasonable. If companies want 4G spectrum and it is going to cause problems for people then they should fix those problems. 10k isn't much to them, keep in mind they are paying billions for the spectrum alone and will then have to invest in equipment and infrastructure.

      We have the concept of restorative justice in the UK. You break something, you pay to fix it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Really? by Tim+C · · Score: 2

      Of course not, it's a licence to own and operate equipment capable of receiving television broadcasts, not a guarantee of service. In a similar (but otherwise unrelated) vein, a train ticket guarantees you carriage (unless you miss the train, of course) but doesn't guarantee you a seat.

      I have a friend who doesn't even own a TV, she is occasionally hassled by TV Licensing. I understand it's annoying, but given that you need a licence to own a TV, and the number of people who don't own a TV is vanishingly small compared to the number that do, and is also almost certainly dwarfed by the number that do but don't have a licence, it's understandable they may be sceptical.

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    9. Re:Really? by Poltron+Inconnu · · Score: 2

      More methods of emergency notification are likely to the good. Cell texting of emergency notices is good and my girlfriend's college does just that. However, claiming that TV is a ridiculous notification system because people turn it off is, well, a bit ridiculous. Aside from there being many people who do have their TV on for long periods of time either actively watching or for background noise, many people will turn to TV to find out how serious a situation is. My mother still calls me from several states over to tell me there is bad weather in my area so turn on the TV to find out if I need to take precautions. New ideas are good, but I don't think it serves the good to dismiss what's in place and known.

    10. Re:Really? by sqldr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A couple of years ago they built the Canary Wharf Tower in London. Out of Aluminium. I was one of the people in a straight line from the transmitter through the tower who one day couldn't pick up jack squat. No cable in the area either. And the majority of building associations responsible for the flats in the area wouldn't give permission for anyone in the blocks to set up satellite dishes.

      The court case went on for years. The BBC built a repeater which didn't work. Everyone lost a lot of money.

      In fact, I've moved to a different area and had years of uninterrupted TV until they built the fucking Shard tower and it's happened again. Now I just watch iplayer.

      --
      I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
  4. Extreme means CABLE does not work by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    extreme? a set top box costs the same as a DVD disc these days.

    RTFA.

    These are cases where "cable and satellite WILL NOT WORK." As in, you are right next to the tower which is overpowering incoming signals.

    The 10k is to install a fiber-optic based solution to the residence.

    Would that even work though? If the interference is that high just the run from the fiber box to the TV could pick up interference!

    Not to mention, although I'm not one to care about evil WiFi rays passing through my body, living in a place with too much em to get a cable signal would give me pause.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      The 10k is for residents who get interference but can not use cable or satellite. Lets say you live in a sparsely populated area next to a freeway the cable company may not service you and you may have trees that interfere with satellite. There's no way the interference will be enough to jam a wired connection.

    2. Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work by Alphathon · · Score: 5, Informative

      As far as I am aware the only "cable company" over here is Virgin Media, who only service a limited area of the country (apparently it's available to 65% of households), most of which is confined to cities (and often there are areas of those cities where it is unavailable too). (Map of coverage) It's not even available in every city; I'm pretty sure that its not available anywhere in Aberdeen, which is the 27th most populous city in the UK (population ~200k), and I doubt its alone. Being in a sparely populated area and next to a motorway (the closest thing we have to freeways) is certainly not the only reason for not having cable access.

      Satellite coverage on the other hand is pretty much 100%, line-of-sight issues notwithstanding. Trees aren't the only issues though. If someone lives in rented accommodation they may not be allowed to put up a dish, and even if they own it they may not have a south-east-facing area to mount a dish.

      Certainly, I doubt there will be (m)any households that can't get satellite signals because of the LTE transmission, since satellite is transmitted at ~10-12 GHz while LTE is transmitted at 800, 1800 and 2600 MHz in Europe. Sure, the signal sent through the coax cable is within that range at ~970 MHz - 2 GHz, but if the LTE is strong enough to interfere with the cabling, fibre-optic connections are available and would likely be cheaper than getting fibre-optic cable TV installed in any of the non-covered areas.

    3. Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2

      It's not hard to get around trees.

      Furthermore, in quite a bit of the UK there is no real terrestrial coverage - much of the north of Scotland has no terrestrial digital and isn't ever likely to have it. We've used digital satellite for years, because even the analogue terrestrial service was extremely poor. I used to have two stacked 24-element industrial spec Yagis aimed at the nearest transmitter, with two signal boosters to drive the 300m of coax back to the house. It would probably have been cheaper to move the house 300m to where the signal was...

    4. Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work by ultranova · · Score: 2, Funny

      The 10k is to install a fiber-optic based solution to the residence.

      Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to just give them a Royal exemption from copyright law and let them get the shows from Pirate Bay?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  5. OT: Redundancies by Venner · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just yesterday I actually had someone tell me to enter my "personal PIN number ID" for a university copying machine. That's enough to make one's head explode.

    And I once had a wedding invitation that said "Please respond to RSVP promptly."

    --
    A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
    1. Re:OT: Redundancies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That is simply because a large portion of the population does not truly think about what they are saying and are simply regurgitating what they have heard.

      I do love how if you correct someone, a lot of the time they will see it as an attack against them. Instead of taking it as what it really is, an attempt to help them not look like a fool when speaking.

      I have a guy here at work who consistently uses a double negative in 80% of his speech. It is really annoying to hear him consistently butcher language like that and be completely oblivious to it.

    2. Re:OT: Redundancies by mug+funky · · Score: 4, Funny

      there's also a good chance they learnt long ago and are now doing it to annoy you personally.

      i do that to some people, if i feel they need a good trollin'

    3. Re:OT: Redundancies by Pikoro · · Score: 2

      Hey, for your FYI, that's how everyone seems to talk these days :)

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    4. Re:OT: Redundancies by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yep. I always try to correct them when I can, keep them on the straightened arrow.

      --
      No sig today...
    5. Re:OT: Redundancies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      simply - you might mean "naively", in that you're presenting what seems to be an obvious explanation but hasn't been subject to rigour;
      large portion - large proportion. We're not discussing Soylent Green;
      truly - common and completely unnecessary filler. Are we contrasting with people who falsely think?
      simply - argh.

      I do love how if you correct someone, a lot of the time they will see it as an attack against them. Instead of taking it as what it really is, an attempt to help them not look like a fool when speaking.

      (1) You appear to have judged the speaker to "look like a fool" who doesn't "think about what they are saying". Unless you're a lot more careful with your language and demeanour when you speak to them - and your post suggests you lack any ability at subtlety, politeness or good language - then they are correct to observe an attack;

      (2) Someone who routinely "corrects" people in this way seems like the fool to me, or at least in some way mentally or socially deficient. Perhaps they have some obsessive disorder which elevates minor inefficiencies in language to the status of causing pain, or perhaps they make up for their own inability to be creative and able in general by emphasising one particular narrow talent and impressing it on everyone else;

      In the specific case, "Please respond to this RSVP promptly," the syntax and meaning are quite clear: "an RSVP" is used colloquially to refer to the present document requesting a response, so the request is to respond to the document promptly. The request could be made shorter, just as we could remove so much needless filler from your post, but the writer does not "look like a fool" for stating it.

      (3) My concern that you are socially deficient is confirmed when you say that your words, despite causing distress to others, are "an attempt to help them". Advice, as Bierce wrote, is the smallest current coin. Saying what you think about some minor matter is in no way helpful if others do not want to hear it.

      I have a guy here at work who consistently uses a double negative in 80% of his speech.

      Does "consistently... in 80%" have some sort of meaning, or are you just trying to bolster your argument by sounding more specific than the extent of your observation warrants?

      It is really annoying

      Yeah, obsessive disorder.

      to hear him consistently butcher language like that and be completely oblivious to it.

      consistently consistently!

      It might initially be confusing, but it's hardly "butchering" to do what is routine in many European languages. Perhaps the guy's non-native? If so, you'd do better in life to stop preaching and start learning and understanding others. If not, you'd still do better to follow this course. Recall Postel's maxim and recall that he got a lot further than you by following it.

  6. Re:"extreme cases" by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A set top box costs about the same as a DVD *player*, which frequently costs less than the discs you put in it.

    My local Tesco has STBs and DVD players for about £15 each. They're crap but they work. If you *really* want to throw money at the problem you can get a dual-tuner DVR with DVD and 320GB hard disk for about 50 quid.

  7. Re:The Southeast Suffers by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    It's a non-issue for a lot of the UK: Wales, for example, has long since switched over. From memory, London is the last area to be switched from analogue to digital. It's also likely to be the target of early 4G upstarts.

    No this is talking about interference to the digital service when the analogue bands are re-used.

  8. Re:The One Show by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The people who are in line to get the 10k will also have non-existent broadband ..

    These are people who live in an area with no cable, bad satellite coverage, and bad analog TV coverage

    --
    Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  9. Re:"extreme cases" by alannon · · Score: 2

    You should probably have checked that before posting... Are you confusing LCD with LED?