5.2.3 A television frequency plan

A potential frequency plan for digital television services and associated discussion which accommodates the above proposals has been developed for the Ministry by external consultants. This is available on request from the Ministry.

The main feature of this plan is the use of a regular separation between any two main digital licences at the same transmission site (or near sites) on a so-called “n + 2” basis. This means that if one licence is on say RF channel DTV45, the other licences at that site would be on DTV47, DTV 49 etc, with a “spare” channel in-between. This separation is desirable to avoid imposing the high costs of special transmitting channel combiners at the transmit site (although higher cost combiners are available if required). The “spare” channel is not necessarily wasted because it can be licensed on an “n + 1” basis at sites providing local “infill” coverage if required (in the example above the infill would use channel DTV46, DTV48, DTV50 etc). If more than one infill site is required they can be licensed for use on the same set of channels using the single frequency network technology (SFN), thus using only one set of frequencies for infill from any particular main station licences. Wider use of the SFN technology may be feasible and, although this would be expected to incur additional implementation costs, may be necessary in the future.

As a comparison, analogue licences are generally provided on an n + 4 basis, allowing for 4 channels separation at any site with infill use being licensed on the n + 2 channel, still allowing a “spare” channel between a main station licence and an infill licence in the same area.

Question 8

Do you agree with the n + 2 basis for licensing of digital television? If not, what would you prefer and why?