Digital terrestrial television in Ireland

The deployment of digital terrestrial television in Ireland has taken some time, with the first small tests being carried out in 1998. 2002 saw the cancellation and non-award of the DTT commercial licence and transmission network sale. In August 2006, a major regional DTT trial began in conjunction with major television channels in Ireland including Radio Telefís Éireann, TV3, TG4 and the now-defunct Channel 6. By 2008 the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland announced that three groups had come together with proposals to manage commercial DTT in Ireland, which was awarded to Boxer DTT Ltd.

DVB-T has repeatedly been tested from RTÉ Network Limited's Three Rock Mountain transmitter, with relatively long tests in 1998 and 2001, and shorter tests in 2004, with a single multiplex carrying the four Irish analogue terrestrial channels, and Tara Television while it was in existence, on both UHF (channel 26) and VHF (channel D). These were under temporary licences for testing, which are regularly awarded.

A contract to run a nationwide system, with six multiplexes from main sites and four from relay sites, was awarded in 2001 to ITS Digital Limited, trading as "It's TV" and led by former RTÉ executive Peter Branagan, who intended to launch a pay TV and broadband service. ITS wanted to offer broadband internet access using the DVB-RCT standard (which, while providing 30 Mbit/s, does not provide sufficient reverse link capacity for 20,000 people on one mast). ITS did not have a broadband licence and no viable business plan without selling broadband, and due to lack of funding withdrew its application in Oct 2002.

The government also planned to privatise RTÉ's transmission network at this time but this too failed in Oct 2002 following the withdrawal of ITS Digital Limited DTT licence application and a number of other factors.

Ireland will use the DVB-T standard with MPEG-4 compression. MHEG-5 will be used for epg and interactive services. The Broadcasting (Amendment) Act 2007 assigned one multiplex to RTÉ to ensure the continued availability of the four existing free-to-air services in Ireland – that is, RTÉ 1, RTÉ 2, TG4 and TV3. RTÉ will establish and run this DTT multiplex independently of BCI-licensed multiplexes in fulfilment of its public-service obligations. Under the 2007 Act, the BCI is required to license commercial DTT in the State. In the first instance, the BCI will seek to license three DTT multiplex operators for the establishment, maintenance and roll-out of commercial DTT in Ireland. In the future one further multiplex will be assigned to RTÉ and one multiplex to the BCI for licensing. A public DTT Information Campaign is planned from March 2009.

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Wikipedia