40,000 to lose TV signal completely thanks to 4G
Millions of TV viewers across the UK will experience disruption when 4G LTE mobile broadband services are launched this year.
Up to a total of 2.3 million homes will experience significant levels if interference to their TV signal, according to The Telegraph. The cause of this issue will be the launch of 4G mobile networks due to go live in the next few months. See also: Phones 4U to launch 4G mobile network.
If that sounded bad enough, it's possible that 40,000 users could have their TV signal completely wiped out. TV watchers will have to schedule an engineer to install a new filter to avoid the problem.
UK mobile operators are currently in the process of bidder for spectrum to be used as 4G on their networks. One of the frequencies on offer, 800MHz, sits alongside the 700MHz spectrum used for Freeview. The other spectrum band is 2.6GHz and won't cause such problems.
EE has been providing 4G for the last few months as the UK's only 4G network but uses the 1800MHz spectrum. See: What is 4G? A complete guide to 4G.
Homes within a 1.25 mile radius of a 4G mast will be affected, including London, the Midlands, north-west England, Yorkshire and Scotland. Those worst affected may be forced to switch to satellite or cable TV from providers like Sky and Virgin Media.
There have been no public advertisements or warnings on the issue. However, DMSL, the agency overseeing the launch has been provided with a £180m budget from operators rather than UK tax payer's money.
This fund will be used to set up a website and a call centre where users can get information, order filters and book an engineer. The Telegraphs reports that the call centre will only be capable of handling 1,000 calls per day despite the millions potentially affected.
Simon Beresford-Wylie, chief executive of DMSL, said: "DMSL plans to pre-empt the majority of potential interference issues caused by 4G."
"We're focused on being able to provide anyone who may be affected with the information and equipment they'll need to ensure they continue to receive free-to-air TV."
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Comments
Djroonie2000 said: Lost many of my stations including ALL HD stations 3 days ago totally gone So all this money i spent on HD TVs Freeview boxes years of headaches losing stations over the switchovers brand new ariel last Novemberwas all a waste of cash and timeAfter i paid to have a new ariel put up and set up everything was 100 perfect Will i get a refund of compensation for all this
Dale Walford said: Ive spoken to a few blokes from the local radio club Theyre of the opinion that the providers will supply ONE filter per affected household But it wont help the other TVs in your house This stinks A signal booster wont help as they amplify all signals that they receive
Dagonwalker said: Its not so long ago I had to buy a digital box for the changeover to the imposed digital Not that it made any difference having access to more channelsTheres very little quality entertainment on there anyway unless you like shopping programmes or ancient repeats My tv viewing has gone down and the way things are going that will not be reversedIf the signal gets lost by g4then its the tv authorities loss not mineDo like Biggles choice of great Government more like Big Brother Government to me only they are notWhy they have or are seemingly allowing this situation to apparently take effect for thousand of people is quite frankly not acceptable
Grandpa-Pete said: Totally agree with youI wouldnt hire a car from Enterprise simply because of the extremely annoying yank inthe TV advert
Grandpa-Pete said: If they cant introduce 4G without such impacts they should not be given a license SimpleOr compensate millions for their TV license as well as paying for any filter engineerGet a grip TV viewers and license payers were here first and should be given absolute priorityIf this is the best the licensing authorities can come up with they should all be sacked This is not progress
Gevg said: Well I for one am outraged that we will be penalised for doing nothingI have spent hundreds of pounds on TV free view tv licence to watch tv and now they say we will give you one filter but the rest you will have to sort yourselfwell I for one will sue the people involved for damages and advise people affected to join together as one and stand up for our rightsthey feed us horse instead of beef now they say we cant have freeview what is this country coming tonanny state
Leeroysantana said: 180m to set up a website amp call centre Seems a very extreme about of money to do just that No mention of paying for these engineers they are booking that ll be at the customers expense no doubt
Trash-bin said: in sept 2011 David Dyson told a trade magazine that Three would run out of Radio bandwith by the end on 2012 causing contention issue My area ran out in March 2012 Hence they cancelling my contracts in September due to not being able to get a dialling tone
Matt Egan said: I wasnt aware of any of that contrary to what some of our more childish posters believe we have nothing to do with advertising Thanks for the info - Ill ask the ads team about it Matt
Stephen Stevenson said: you are advertising wwwoopadcom on this site - its an auction site a sort of ebay wannabe - do you know they demand that you bid in oopads which you must buy from them at a cost of almost 1 euro each and then each bid you make costs you one oopad but and heres the catch your oopad only ups your bid by 001 euro you can use up an awful lot of oopads bidding for anything - sounds a bit uncool to me
Grumpy Pensioner said: I certainly wont have money to pay out for filterengineer - or pay for Sky et al - Freeview is all most pensioners can afford and there is still more than enough rubbish without having to pay for even more of the same
Robert said: This is disgraceful and I would refuse to pay my TV licence
maccyroo said: Because they get money from the successful G biddersIt is ALWAYS ABOUT the money
Stewart Miller said: so after buying new decoders to continue to receive freeview after the digital changeover 40000 people might lose freeview altogether i hope they sue this useless bunch of idiots running the country who are allowing this to happen in the name of even moreprofit making for their rich buddies perhaps if we all stopped paying for a tv licence and they took everybody to court and jailed us all for none payment of their fines and had to jail us all we would finally be able to watch tv in the prisons because im 100 certain that jails will still have their tv service ohh but they will have to spend billions building new prisons too because they just dont have the room for us all lol
Pete said: A little annoying now in hind sight we probably would have been better having the digital switch over move everyone to freesat and the internet That way we would have more spectrum for LTE and future mobile networks and no interference issues
sip said: It probably has something to do with the UK following in the footsteps of the Yanks It involves lobbying and donations to the political party legalised bribery anyoneEventually all big businesses in the UK will be owned by Americans French German Chinese etc etc Talk about selling-off the family jewels And we dont invest in our people our businesses and infrastructureDisclosure I am as foreign but as British as you can get and believe in British ownership of British firms
Somebloke said: Because they want you to drown in a sea of microwave radiation
Simplethinker said: Is the engineer free Is the filter supplied free What compensation is payable Who do people sueWhy do we need another supplier Is there any non profit making common sense out there What pressure is being applied to the decision makers to stop all this nonsense
Biggles_aviator said: Why is the great Goverment we have allowing this to take place
Albert said: nothing a hacksaw wouldnt cure