ITC & BBC announce agreement for new phase of digital terrestrial frequency planning
17th March 1999
The Independent Television Commission (ITC), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), National Transcommunications Limited (NTL) and Castle Transmission International (CTI) announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which jointly commits them to develop further the frequency plan for digital terrestrial television within the UK.
This replaces the previous MoU which was signed in 1995 between the ITC, BBC and NTL which governed the development of the frequency plan used for the launch of digital terrestrial television in the UK.
The new MoU has an initial term of three years and will cover the establishment of a frequency planning project team who will carry out the next phase of DTT frequency planning.
The MoU partners expect that the first year of this project will allow the team to complete work on the existing 81 site plan. This work will include adding a 5th and 6th frequency to those DTT sites (Wenvoe, Keighley and Reigate) which currently only have 4 frequencies available. The team will also re-appraise the current 81 site plan to evaluate if it is possible to improve the coverage achieved. Finally the team will start preparatory work on adding further relay sites to the plan.
In order that the project can take account of the wide range of interests surrounding this key initiative the MoU partners have agreed to establish an Advisory Board. It is the role of this board to enable the project planners to discuss and co-ordinate project objectives with a wide range of interested parties ranging from the broadcasters to consumer groups.