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Cellphones Communications Television United Kingdom Entertainment

Almost a Million UK Homes Will Suffer 4G TV interference 166

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."
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Almost a Million UK Homes Will Suffer 4G TV interference

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  • Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SydShamino ( 547793 ) on Thursday February 23, 2012 @01:53AM (#39133739)

    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? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jrmcferren ( 935335 ) <.robbie.mcferren. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday February 23, 2012 @01:56AM (#39133757) Journal

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

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23, 2012 @02:02AM (#39133781)

    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.

  • by Alphathon ( 1634555 ) on Thursday February 23, 2012 @03:45AM (#39134229)

    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 [broadbandanalyst.co.uk]) 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 [wikipedia.org] and would likely be cheaper than getting fibre-optic cable TV installed in any of the non-covered areas.

  • Re:OT: Redundancies (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23, 2012 @06:36AM (#39134917)

    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.

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

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