Blackarrow Consulting

Quite famously, the US chose the big bang approach to the removal of Analogue Terrestrial transmission and its replacement with Digital, something completely different to the UK approach which takes place over a four year period. This was scheduled for February 17th 2009 several years ago, and it is rapidly approaching. However there is now a groundswell of support for delaying this in the US because the feeling is that the country is not prepared for that transition. This has even gone up to the President-Elect Obama’s office, which has asked the US Congress to delay the transition claiming that poor, rural and elderly residents are unprepared for the cut-off.

The two different approaches taken by the US and the UK are pretty much at apposite ends of the scale, with the US being very short and quick and the UK one actually taking a severe amount of time. My own belief is that the US has taken a very disruptive and counter-productive approach, which maximises the confusion, limits the learning and response capability to problems such as those persons described in the letter to congress. The UK approach however is too sedentary, which although is assured of success over the transition leaves the market open to a lack of responsiveness to new technologies such as HD and DVB-T2, and the growth in IP based return path services/iPlayer.

In all however, it is too late for change in the US approach – at least to avoid major confusion and cost – something that the US government does not need at this point as it tries to fight off the financial problems that are plaguing the world. However on second thoughts, the rapid change approach of the US transition might actually stir the US DTV market up as those persons who suddenly do not have TV service migrate to Digital Tuners (STBs to us Europeans) either standard or PVR/Advanced, or migrate to the Satellite and Cable players who have DTV services already available for much of the US. This might be a welcome economy boost in these troubled times.

The UK approach is a juggernaut of planning and already underway, which sounds like it cannot change due to inertia, but it could. It has already demonstrated some of the flex needed by the discussions ongoing about how to introduce DVB-T2 services into the London region in late 2009, so that HD terrestrial services could be available to more people ready for the 2012 Olympics. My own view though is that there should be a more revolutionary change – a complete change in the timetable that introduces a midway point on the scale into the UK. The change that should take place now is to compress the roll-outs so that the UK market completes its transition to Digital for Q2 2010, rather than 2013 as is currently planned. This then allows the introduction of the DVB-T2 services overlaid over the existing DVB-T setup, with the need of course to replace existing STBs/DTVs with compatible equipment so that HD services are fully available to the whole country well before 2012. This in itself could also be an economic boost in the UK economy in the troubled times of which everyone speaks.

Easy for me to talk about it now – I am sure there was the reasons for the slow migration, but come on – change the plan now in the UK and give the UK HD DTT services across the board in 2010.