Digispy

Many people seem to be forgetting that all the TVs and video recorders in bedrooms and kitchens across the country have to be converted to digital before analogue switch off can occur. It’s stated that currently 40% of households in the UK have digital TV (I have Sky), but I think actual digital penetration is probably no better than 10% as few households are prepared to take out additional subscriptions to upgrade each television and recording device owned – some way short of the government’s 90% target for switch off. There are still the 60% of households who don’t have digital at all and many of them are not interested in what’s currently being offered, so maybe the emphasis of digital TV broadcasters has to change from quantity to quality of service to entice these people.

In my opinion, I think the only viable future for DTTV (and the only way the 90% target will be reached) is for an entirely free-to-air one supplying a high quality service, where channel numbers aren’t important but channel quality is; both in terms of programme content and engineering standards.

In the immediate term, I think the government should bring in legislation to limit each multiplex to 4 wide-screen FTA TV channels in order to force broadcasters to raise picture and sound quality up to at least DVD standard. The multiplexes might be arranged in this way:

MULTIPLEX 1 (BBC)

BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Choice (Three), BBC Four

MULTIPLEX 2 (Commercial)

ITV1, CH4, CH5, ITV2

MULTIPLEX 3 (Information)

BBC News 24, BBC Parliament, ITN, BBCi, Digital Teletext

MULITPLEX 4 (Live Events)

BBC Multiscreen

If no additional channels are made available for FTA reception, it may be more profitable for the government to use the remaining multiplexes for mobile telecommunications or reserve them for a future HDTV service, probably using a more advanced compression system, starting 5 or 10 years from now.

As is happening in many other countries (such as USA, Canada, Australia, Japan), I think DTTV should have been reserved for HDTV from the outset to compete with subscription TV on a quality versus quantity basis.

Regards,

Justin.

I see lots of posts about good deals people get for £40+, but I’m interested in deals much less than that for broadband and phone.

About 11 months ago I was offered BB M and Phone XL for £20 per month (which of course I accepted – I guess it was a reward for being with NTL for many years).

What other great deals are people getting? And when did you get them?

Ideally I’d like to get the same for committing to another 12 months – but I think they may not be so generous again.

I’m interested in what people are paying for:
BB M, Phone L (current full cost £23.45)
BB M, Phone XL (current full cost £27.95)
BB L, Phone L (current full cost £30.45)
BB L, Phone XL (current full cost £34.95)

(I saw someone get the latter including TalkMobile and TalkInternational for £27.95).

In any replies, like me, please don’t figure in the June 1st price rises, or e-billing.

Cheers, Mark