Almost a Million UK Homes Will Suffer 4G TV interference

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."

Comments

Re:"extreme cases"

[jaymz666]

a dvd disc? from the atm machine?

Really?

[philip.paradis]

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.

Re:Really?

[SydShamino]

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.

Re:Really?

[jrmcferren]

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

Re:Really?

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

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.

Re:Really?

[sqldr]

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.

OT: Redundancies

[Venner]

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."

Re:OT: Redundancies

[mug funky]

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'

Re:OT: Redundancies

[Joce640k]

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

Re:OT: Redundancies

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Extreme means CABLE does not work

[Alphathon]

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.

Re:The One Show

[JasterBobaMereel]

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