Vouchers to Help 900000 UK Homes Fix TV Loss Caused by 4G Services

The governments Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey MP, has set out the terms for a £180 million scheme to help 900,000 UK homes avoid the loss of Freeview Digital TV (DTV) services, which is expected to be disrupted by interference from the next generation of superfast “4G” (LTE) Mobile Broadband services.

In an open letter to the communications regulator, Ofcom, Vaizey noted that “around 2.3 million households could be affected” by interference on the 800MHz spectrum band for 4G services, which is due to be auctioned off in Q4-2012 before coming into service at the end of 2013. But only 900,000 will actually receive any financial support because they are “likely to rely” on digital terrestrial TV services “for their primary viewing“.

The solution, according to Vaizey, is to provide “eligible households” with vouchers that can be used to cover the cost of a free-of-charge filter, which in “most” cases can simply be attached to a TV receiver in the living room. Sadly some situations will also require an engineer visit to help fit a filter on the rooftop aerial or to assist people with special (disabled) needs, which is estimated to cost around £50 +vat but will be provided free under the scheme.

The scheme will also provide funding to support platform changes, where fitting a filter alone cannot restore an “acceptable level” of TV reception (e.g. switching to a cable TV (Virgin Media) or Freesat service); between 38,500 and 17,000 homes are likely to fall into this bracket. Unfortunately an estimated 500 homes will have no alternative and in such extreme cases the government will “look at alternative ways of restoring good OTT reception, up to a limit of £10,000 per household“.

Ed Vaizey MP, Communications Minister, said:

“The high speed mobile broadband services which will be launched in the 800MHz spectrum will bring significant economic and social benefits to the UK as a whole and to consumers and businesses. Many of those consumers will also be viewers of digital terrestrial television (OTT) and some of those will unfortunately have those TV services affected by the LTE services unless action is taken to deal with interference.

The Government is keen to mitigate the effects of interference, so that no television viewer loses access to television services. However, in order to arrive at a fair view of the appropriate budget with which to implement mitigation measures, it is necessary to make a number of assumptions.”

Sadly there are still some cases where home owners can expect no assistance at all, such as for interference issues that result from problems with set-top aerials, cable TV equipment or local TV services. For example, customers of cable TV, who may suffer some interference if they are using an older box, will instead be told to contact their cable provider for a fix. Similarly ,”no support should be offered for any interference caused by mobile handsets using a 4G service, where a practical solution is to move the handset away from the TV,” added Vaizey.

As reported before, the money for all this work will come from mobile operators that are licensed to provide services in the 800MHz spectrum band. Crucially Mobile Network Operators (MNO) will need to “work together to deliver the scheme” and must establish a body, commonly known as Mitco, to handle its management.

This week’s move follows shortly after the Shadow Minister for Media, Helen Goodman MP (Labour), warned that both Ofcom and the government were “running out of time” to resolve the problem (here). Ofcom will now need to adopt the governments new terms into their proposals before publishing a final recommendation in the very near future.

Ed Vaizey’s Open Letter to Ofcom (PDF)
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/letter-dcms-ofcom-10072012.pdf