Spectrum is (still) a scarce resource; if there were infinite bandwidth available, its price would be zero. It is also, arguably, a public one. Therefore, it does not seem unreasonable to me that, if there are ways to be found to use that spectrum more efficiently, governments should take steps to ensure that those organisations (monopolistic or otherwise) currently leasing it should be helped, persuaded or forced to implement those efficiencies in the public interest.
David Elsteins position doesnt seem to me to address that fundamental point. Rather, he attempts to dodge the issue by arguing that digitalisation doesnt, in fact, deliver efficiency benefits when applied to analogue terrestrial spectrum. I dont think thats a defensible position and I dont know of anyone else apart from David Elstein who seriously believes that.
Copper twisted pair, co-axial cable, and satellite transponders all deliver efficiency benefits when digitalised; why should terrestrial television spectrum be exempt? If you can do something to a transport medium that allows it to pass ten or twenty times as much information through it as you could before, that pipe is ultimately worth more (whatever its made of) either to the end-user or to the owner/lessor.
It is no objection to this argument to state that digital terrestrial television (DTT) doesnt offer as much bandwidth as digital satellite or digital cable. ADSL offers even less should BT therefore stop upgrading its local exchanges forthwith? And David Elstein happens to be doubly wrong about interactivity. First, all that matters to the user is that the service should appear interactive (witness the considerable success of the clunky Teletext service in an analogue environment, using exactly the same carousel model that enhanced DTT applications do). Secondly, DTT is in any case entirely capable of offering what Elstein describes as true interactivity; this has nothing to do with its bandwidth, being entirely related to the implementation of a telephone-based return-path.
Now, it may well be the case that for entirely contingent reasons to do with faulty business models and immature technology UK DTT is nowhere near realising the extra value to be derived from a fatter pipe, either for its owners or users. But that, in a way, seems to me to sum up the entire problem with the Elstein view; its mired in the here-and-now and obsessed with the possibly questionable political genesis of DTT (frankly, who cares?). Governments, surely, are entitled to take the longer view as a matter of public policy, as Damian Tambini argues.
I do agree with Elstein on one point the coverage problem with respect to second and third TV sets is a difficult one. But its not insurmountable. The issue here is that such receivers are not usually attached to the aerial on the roof, but obtain their signal from a small antenna placed on top of the set. As things currently stand, most of these portable sets could not receive useable DTT signals, even if one attached something like the current Pace free-to-air adapter to them.
But there is an emerging technology solution: a device called a diversity receiver, which uses two aerials and two tuners to construct a viable signal in situations such as these. There is recent evidence that such an approach can resolve these reception difficulties in most cases (particularly if 16-QAM is adopted in lieu of 64-QAM for the transmission mode), although it is a substantially more expensive solution. The question then becomes one of price. But by 2010 (the very earliest date by which I believe switch-off would be possible), mass production combined with Moores law will probably have squared that particular circle.
This technology offers a double dividend: it also enables in fact, it was originally designed to deliver mobile DTT reception (neither cable nor satellite, incidentally, can match this particular facility). For sure, it will probably be a few years before anyone makes any money out of installing DTT receivers in cars (although someones already turning a pretty penny out of installing DVD players) but if we return to David Elsteins prelapsarian analogue universe, no one would be allowed to experiment with such innovative new digital services in a terrestrial environment.
On balance, and for all its present faults, I think I know which broadcasting environment I would rather inhabit.
