Last week we heard that the French regulator has delayed the issue of DVB-H spectrum and that means that DVB-H services, operating in a patchwork of UHF spectrum across France, cannot yet be built out and a live service won’t arrive until well into 2008.
Previously the consortium that has been pushing for the spectrum issue thought it would be possible to launch services in October 2007, in time for coverage of the Rugby world cup.
As the news broke, researcher Screen Digest claimed that the delay was caused by disagreements between broadcasters and cellcos over whether or not the service ought to be paid for or free to air.
Our sources inside Orange tell us this is most definitively not the case and that although it does relate to details surrounding the exact use for the issue of the license, the broadcasters which expect to be involved in the service have no illusions ‘ it is to be a paid service in France, as it is in Italy, and although it may be a lot cheaper than the 3 Italia service, it will come in various bundles and flavors similar to the Italian service offerings.
Had there been a genuine dispute in France over whether or not to adopt a free to air model or a paid subscription, then it could have had potentially disastrous consequences with the rest of Europe likely to continue the argument in service implementations in Germany, Spain and the UK all likely to rethink their approach. As it is, this is really described as a process of ironing out all details prior to the issue of the license which is holding up the deployment process.
France’s large urban population means that only some 100 plus square kilometers of transmitter coverage needs to be built out in order to reach something close to 60% of the population, which means that it could sensibly get some services launched with under a year’s notice.
It is important in Europe to avoid the messy outcome that Korea finds itself in with two competing services, one mandated by the regulator as free to air backed by broadcasters, and another which is offering paid subscriptions, backed by SK Teleom and other cellcos.
Germany announced similar delays as well as an investigation by the cartel office into the cellco dominated consortium that is bidding for the single available 8 MH channel there.