Examination of Witnesses (Questions 377-379)
ARQIVA, NATIONAL
GRID WIRELESS
20 DECEMBER 2005
Q377 Chairman: Good morning everybody.
This is the penultimate session of our inquiry into analogue switch-off
and we have appearing before us today the facilitators of television
broadcast via the various different platforms, so we will have
the transmission companies for terrestrial broadcast, the satellite
operators, the cable companies and the digital subscriber line
technology companies. Can I first of all welcome Arqiva and National
Grid Wireless and, in particular, Steve Holebrook and Alan Watson
from Arqiva and Steve Marshall and John Ward from National Grid
Wireless. Perhaps I could begin by asking you to give us a general
overview of your perspective of switch-off as the transmission
companies and, in particular, what switch-off will require you
to do in order to make the conversion necessary?
Mr Marshall: Good morning, Chairman.
My name is Steven Marshall. I am the Chief Executive of National
Grid Wireless. I am here with John Ward who is the Director of
Network Operations. We are here in our capacity as providers of
infrastructure to the industry. We support the switchover
programme. We believe that it actually represents additional investment
in a new technology rather than having to support an ageing technology
in terms of the analogue capability. We also recognise that it
will offer greater choice to the end consumers and greater interactivity
as well going forward. Our responsibility together with Arqiva
is to provide the new digital network technology to the specification
of the broadcasters to meet their requirements.
Mr Holebrook: Thank you for the
opportunity to address the Committee. As Steven said, the network
itself is actually split into two halves. Both National Grid and
ourselves operate a complementary half of the network, so to reach
the full UK population you need both parts of our network to deliver
the project. We have been working on the analogue switch-off project
for approximately two to three years. We have been involved in
the timetable planning, the transition planning and also the sequencing
of which regions are going to be involved, so we have been very
much involved with the broadcasters and the regulator to put forward
a proposed timetable and the technical solution to enable this
to happen. It will involve re-engineering the vast majority of
sites. At the smaller relay sites that just means changing some
of the transmitters and at the larger sites it involves high mast
work, so we will have to operate at 1,000ft plus and change the
antennas of those very large sites, and in a couple of circumstances
we will need to redevelop masts and build new masts to replace
existing ones which will not be able to cope with the additional
load that is put on them by the new services. From our point of
view it is very much an opportunity to enable what is the fastest
growing platform, Freeview, with 600,000 additional users brought
on in the last quarter, to roll out to the rest of the population—currently
it is available to about 73% of the population—and through
the process of analogue switch-off we are able to free more of
the spectrum up that allows us to cover the remaining 25% of the
population. We are very much supporters of it and we have been
involved in bringing the proposals forward at a technical level.
Q378 Chairman: Thank you. You each
own roughly 50% of the physical transmission sites, but National
Grid Wireless also provides the broadcast service to the BBC and
Arqiva for the commercial broadcasters. Does that mean that you
each have your own equipment on each other's masts?
Mr Holebrook: Yes. It is generally
split into two elements. There is the site ownership and the provision
of the common infrastructure which is shared by everybody, so
that is the mast and the antenna that goes up on top of the mast.
On the ground level we provide the transmission equipment, so
the transmitters are provided and either party can provide that.
That element is subject to competitive tendering and we are currently
going through a tendering process with all of the broadcasters
to see who provides that element of the service.
Q379 Chairman: The 80 existing digital
transmitters, are those split between the two of you again?
Mr Holebrook: Yes, the ownership
of the masts is split between us. National Grid has slightly more
than ourselves, but the transmitters that are at the bottom are
split in terms of National Grid take the responsibility for the
BBC and they operate two multiplexes in their own right and we
support SDN and Digital 3&4.
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