From Mike Harrison
Godalming, Surrey
Paul Marks’s report on millimetre-wave digital TV transmissions
(“And now the TV forecast…”, 9 August, p 28)
leaves cable distribution systems as an
also-ran. But isn’t it better if broadband cable is accepted as part of the
normal infrastructure of a community?
Marks appears to overlook the current trend. Published media, once thought of
as “broadcast”, will in future be piped to users. That way access and quality
will be controlled, and the weather won’t be able to interrupt Star Wars
II on the telly.
In any case, even in well-populated suburbs—especially hilly ones like
ours—the number of transmitters needed to provide millimetre-wave TV with
line-of-sight to every roof doesn’t bear thinking about. Add them to the
existing proliferation of mobile phone and emergency service transmitters and
you have a visual disaster.
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Personal and corporate communications, however, are better delivered to
mobile terminals and so need the airwaves.
