DAB-IP mobile TV service to close - an opportunity for DAB+

Virgin Mobile's DAB-IP mobile TV service will close next year following just 6,000 people subscribing to the service that launched less than a year ago despite there being a £2.5m TV advertising campaign that coincided with its launch starring Pamela Anderson. 

BT, which is the company that developed DAB-IP, has decided to pull the plug on the format altogether, and although the number of subscriptions to the service was very low, the final straw was likely to have been the EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding putting her foot down with regards to European countries adopting DVB-H for mobile TV, because she had threatened to do before, but according to a BBC news web article this time she looked to be serious:

It is thought that the EU is keen to repeat the success it had with GSM when it apparently mandated its use across Europe, and with mobile TV predicted to be a big industry in years to come, the EU is keen to make the EU-designed DVB-H system the leading mobile TV system globally. Its main competitor is T-DMB, which although it is an extension of the DAB system, DMB was actually developed in South Korea, and the main mobile handset manufacturers are also from South Korea. Luckily enough, DVB-H is a much better system than DMB in terms of the technologies it uses, so I don't have any grumbles with what the EU commissioner has done. 

Another positive consequence of having only one instead of multiple mobile TV systems is that it avoids the wasteful use of spectrum that would have resulted from many of the same TV channels being duplicated on all of the different systems.

More capacity for DAB -- and an opportunity for DAB+ stations to launch

The DAB-IP mobile TV service is broadcast on the Digital One national commercial DAB multiplex, so when the service stops transmitting next year it will free up about 500 kbps of national capacity. Also, the forthcoming Channel 4 national DAB multiplex had reserved around 300 kbps to carry mobile TV channels using DAB-IP, so that will now be free for other uses from the outset.

About 128 kbps of the freed up capacity on Digital One will probably be used to allow Capital Life, Core and theJazz to switch back to broadcasting in stereo instead of mono as they are currently doing, but this will still leave around 672 kbps of national DAB capacity for new services to use. 

Therefore, I would hope that they will either save some of this capacity for DAB+ stations to launch within the next 2 - 3 years, or better still they could allow DAB+ stations to launch straightaway. The poll on this website asking people when they would like DAB+ stations to launch shows unequivocally that the vast majority of people are in favour of DAB+ stations launching as soon as possible, so I don't see why at least some of this freed up capacity couldn't be used for DAB+ stations. 

Ofcom is being hypocritical if it disallows DAB+ stations to launch

If you look at some of the services that Ofcom has allowed to launch, then it would seem to me to be very hypocritical of Ofcom not to allow DAB+ stations to launch:

1. Ofcom actually encouraged the use of DAB capacity for Virgin's DAB-IP mobile TV service, and launching DAB+ stations is similar to this, yet nobody batted an eyelid when the mobile TV service began transmitting. For example, the mobile TV channels don't show up in the list of stations on the vast majority of DAB radios, and DAB+ stations wouldn't show up in the list of stations either, so the vast majority of people wouldn't even be aware that DAB+ stations had launched. So if anybody has any ideas about how people are going to get annoyed about something they're not aware of, please let me know. 
2. Ofcom allowed Top-UP TV to launch a couple of years ago which used some Freeview capacity to carry their pay-TV service, and this required everybody that wanted to view the Top-Up TV channels to buy new receivers.
3. Sky is going to remove Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News from Freeview and it is planning to relaunch them as part of a mini subscription package. Sky is planning to use the MPEG-4 video codec in order to allow them to squeeze an extra TV channel onto its subscription package, which will again require anybody that wants to view the channels to buy a new set-top box.

Ofcom is also very proud of its very light-touch regulatory policy, and a couple of its mantras are that it "promotes self-regulation wherever possible" and that it is "biased towards non-intervention". Therefore, Ofcom has already acted hypocritically with regards to DAB+, because Channel 4 wanted to use DAB+ on the forthcoming national multiplex but when Ofcom advertised the licence it said that stations had to use the outdated MP2 codec in order to be compatible with all of the to-be-obsolete DAB receivers (not that this will rule out DAB+ stations to launch in future, because Ofcom changes the rules as it goes along -- e.g. mobile TV wasn't allowed to broadcast on DAB, but Ofcom changed the rules to allow it to.

Ultimately, although there may well be a tiny percentage of people who're against DAB+ even launching, this tiny percentage of people are completely outnumbered by those who want DAB+ to launch. Also, the broadcasters and the regulators trampled on the rights of the people who wanted DAB to provide good audio quality when they reduced the audio quality, in particular when the BBC reduced the bit rates of its stations on DAB in December 2001, so it would seem to be a case of double standards if they disallow DAB+ stations to launch on the basis of a tiny minority of people being against DAB+ stations launching...

Digital One's reception quality

One negative consequence of the Virgin Mobile DAB-IP service ceasing is that the improved reception quality on DAB on the Digital One multiplex, in particular in and around London, might be degraded. This is because BT funded the increase in transmission powers and additional transmitters in order to enable its mobile TV service to be received with adequate reception quality (video is more difficult to receive than audio, so higher transmission powers are needed to receive mobile TV than digital radio), so when BT withdraws its funding the higher transmission powers might revert to what they were originally.