21581 - SCTE Broadband August2022 COMPLETE v1

85 Vol. 44 No. 3 - September 2022 Issue from the archive What can UK learn from USA experience? Given the same minimal degree of Government regulation to enable free enterprise to function, as in the US, there is little doubt that cable TV could be equally successful in the UK. The other requirement is an adequate supply and spread in character of programme material at competitive rates. It is evident that sufficient volume could be found if the scale of operation was large enough. The Government and the Industry Unfortunately, many of us have grown old waiting for various UK Governments and civil servants to make up their minds on policy. Currently we are running 5 to 7 years behind the USA in the development of a large scale national network, the only bright lights on the horizon are (a) the limited pilot subscription TV experiments permitted by the Home Office and (b) the recent favourable report from the Government's Information Technology Advisory Panel, which said there were powerful industrial and economic arguments for encouraging the installation of cable systems in Britain. Still not taking the advice of the panel, Mr. Whitelaw has delayed decisions for at least another 6 months whilst Lord Hunt examines the proposals - yet again! We live in hope! Future Growth in the UK As an exercise in predicting the rate of growth we might expect in Britain if the pattern was similar to that in the USA - except for a 7-8 year delay - I have produced the graphs in Fig. 2. Since the larger US market has some total 80 milli on TV homes the figures have been scaled down to the smaller British market of 20 million+. The US annual growth rate curve in percentage terms has been applied to the UK position to reach 25% (5 million homes) in 6-7 years. The British situation is compli cated by the need for large scale and radical updating of existing systems, particularly HF, which have inadequate channel capacity. This updating would go on simultaneously with new installations during the first 4/5 years before the growth rate increased to some 500,000 homes/year. Prediction beyond that period is somewhat uncertain but at a guess, penetration might eventually reach 50% or 10m homes in a further 5-7 years with a connection rate peaking 1 million per year. Engineering Standards Assuming an eventual Government go-ahead, we shall be faced with decisions in respect of what basic cabling systems should be used. Obviously a move towards some standardisation is highly desirable in reducing variation in large scale production of systems hardware. One simple course would be to adopt the latest USA co- axial cable tree network VHF system where techniques are fully established and costs largely known. 30 channel (UK 8MHz) capacity should serve adequately. Fig. 2 . A forecast for UK growth on USA Pattern scaled for market size. We shall, no doubt, find it logical to build into any engineering standards adopted a requirement that systems are suitable or can be readily adapted for 2-way communication from subscribers to central points up to video bandwidth. Thus new and special services can be introduced as experience is gained and the economic position permits—as is the case in the USA. Two $64,000 questions arise (a) The future systems engineering proposals from the large HF wire pair companies e.g. Rediffusion. (b) The implication of optical fibre technology in this overall picture. In respect of (a) I am not aware of the forward thinking by Rediffusion in this connection but maybe we shall shortly learn more about their policy. Whilst there are obvious applications for (b) fibre optics in wide band trunk links for Cable TV, the question of direct distribution by glass fibre to individual homes opens up major questions of which system to use and overall cost. I deal with some aspects of fibre optics application to cable later, but firm indications of cost are not yet available. Capital Investment (a) Assuming the national use of a co-axial network as a basis for comparison. (b) Taking the growth curve of Fig. 2. for the UK. Vol. 12 No. 1 August 1982 29