CABLE PLAN PROJECT

Cable Plan Project



Introduction

The project has been carried out by and divided into four phases: creation of project plan; generation of planning and service options; development and initial analysis of scenarios; refinement and detailed analysis of three final scenarios.

After an initial phase of requirements and information capture, a wide range of options were presented and discussed in Phase II of the project. From these options a set of seven planning scenarios were generated. These scenarios included not only conventional planning to fixed roof-top reception, but also portable and mobile reception, interactive television, market-driven planning and satellite and cable coverage. These scenarios were evaluated in Phase III of the Project.

Following on from this work, and the announcement on analogue switch-over from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in September 1999, it was decided to focus further work on evolutionary planning scenarios for the universal provision of core digital TV services in the all-digital environment. These core services comprise the digital equivalent to the free-to-air programmes currently delivered by analogue terrestrial TV. The scenarios are conventional in the sense that they assume planning for fixed roof-top reception, and use a mixture of channels from the existing digital TV plan and conversions of analogue frequencies.

Three planning scenarios were selected for detailed evaluation in Phase IV of the Project. As well as considering coverage issues, this phase of evaluation also considered matters such as the potential for spectrum release and the mechanics of the transition process. Some consideration was also given to the provision of interactive services within these scenarios.

Options for an All-Digital Future

Phase II of the Genesis project identified and developed a number of frequency planning scenarios. Each scenario was intended to represent a way in which digital-only television transmissions could be implemented in the US. They included issues ranging from the means of delivering the signal to the type of modulation scheme, together with different frequency planning models.

These operational scenarios would then form the basis of more detailed calculations of coverage and capacity to be carried out in Phase III of the project.

While it was necessary to consider conventional planning options in deriving the operational scenarios, it was also important to ensure that new approaches to planning, covering as many different aspects of television broadcasting as possible, were considered.

Furthermore, it was essential that the views of a wide cross-section of the digital television industry were reflected as, for example, an option that favoured one industry segment may have proved unacceptable to another segment.

For these reasons, an industry brainstorming session was held on 15 April 1999. The aim of the meeting was to provide an open forum, during which novel options could be suggested and discussed. This was to be followed by group sessions to consider the implications of various options in more detail.

Organisations that sent representatives to the brainstorming meeting are as follows:

BBC

BREMA

BSkyB

Channel 4

Castle Transmission International

The Department of Culture, Media & Sport

The Independent Television Commission

NDS

OFTEL

ONDigital

Philips Research Laboratories

The Radiocommunications Agency

SDN

Telewest Communications

This meeting, together with a second brainstorming ...