Digital television is just around the corner, offering homes not just a bigger choice of stations, but two-way data channels too. This means interactive TV and Internet access, and RTE is planning to be in on the act.
Mr Peter Branagan, director of technology at RTE, says the station is proposing to offer digital terrestrial television by 2000.
This means users will pick up digital TV and data services with very small antennae, usually no more obtrusive than a small "rabbit's ears" on top of the TV. The initial plan is to provide six channels, but by multiplexing the signals (the data is mixed according to how much there is) there will also be space for data services such as the Internet. This will mean that viewers can request additional information about programmes they are watching, or browse the World Wide Web from their television screens.
But Internet usage is dependent on an uplink, or back channel, to send requests to the Net, albeit with a much smaller bandwidth requirement. RTE is also planning to offer such a service, so users can avoid having to use the phone in conjunction with the digital terrestrial service. RTE recently joined the ITTI (Implementation of Terrestrial TV Interactivity) project, part of the EU's Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS) programme. This project aims to implement interactive digital terrestrial television in about 18 months, and starts next March. Digital terrestrial television services are due to commence in Britain next year.
Mr Branagan says the service will be provided via six national multiplexers, each capable of carrying data at 24Mbps. Each will also provide 1,000 uplink channels of 1kbps each, using cells of up to 75 km radius. Mr Branagan says this will allow for "hundreds of thousands of near-simultaneous users", and has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of bandwidth.
He says the system will be primarily aimed at the domestic and small business market, but because it is the only truly portable data network (no communications wires need be attached to your television or PC), he expects the system to be popular in the portable market too.
The whole system is proposed as a joint venture between RTE and outside partners, who have not yet been named. Since it will compete with cable, MMDS and satellite distribution systems, RTE expects cable companies to be excluded from getting involved. RTE has requested Government approval for the system, which it hopes to receive during 1998 so that the system can be implemented by the end of 1999.
The cable companies though are opposed to RTE's involvement in digital terrestrial, which could eat into their markets just as they contemplate expensive network upgrades. Mr Pat Cronin of Irish Multichannel TV says he wouldn't like to see RTE get control of the service. He says if this happens other uses for the cable networks would have to be found. "I don't know if we'd survive as an industry," he says.
Whoever ultimately controls the service, interactive digital terrestrial TV is coming soon, and will offer a cheap, portable Internet service too. Equally certain is that the incessant demand for more and more bandwidth will mean that there's room for other data services. The future is getting increasingly digital.
