No spectrum in the 700MHz band (710 to 790 MHz) for digital pay TV has been allocated to YTL just yet, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia a Commission (MCMC) clarified in a press release dated 28 November, 2010.

This follows a report in The Malaysian Insider which quoted The Straits Times, Singapore as saying:-

“Singapore’s The Straits Times said the prime minister will meet senior telco officials next Monday to defuse the widening controversy over the 700MHz spectrum said to be given to tycoon Tan Sri Francis Yeoh’s YTL to operate its hybrid television service slated for end 2011. It can also be used to widen its broadband service.”

The MCMC clarified that the licence which it had issued to YTL Communications on 30 August 2010 was a Content Applications Service Provider (CASP) licence which allows YTL to provide Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service over its 2.3GHz WiMAX network.

YTL Communications already has a license in this spectrum for its WiMAX broadband service and IPTV is just one of the services which it can provide in this band as part of its WiMAX service, just as TM does over its Unifi fibre broadband, and which Maxis is planning to do over fibre as well.

The MCMC further clarified that at this stage, it is assessing  a detailed business plan by YTL for the roll out of digital pay TV and not WiMAX mobile services as reported, and that it had not issued YTL any spectrum in the 700MHz band as yet for digital pay TV, so what is said in these media reports and blogs is inaccurate.

The 700MHz band is currently used by analogue TV broadcasters. For example, 8TV, TV3, NTV7 and TV9 broadcast in the UHF band within the Klang Valley. UHF frequencies are internationally defined as those which range from 300MHz up to 3GHz, which includes the 700MHz band.

Other TV stations such as RTM2 broadcast in the lower frequency VHF band III within the Klang Valley, though in some places, this is retransmitted in the UHF band. Trials of RTMi, RTM's DVB-T digital broadcast, have been conducted at 658MHz SID2 and more recently in band III. 

Malaysia requires that all broadcasters migrate to digital by 31 December, 2015, by which date, all analogue broadcasts must be turned off. However, that does not mean that all of them will be crammed into that 80MHz block in the 700MHz band.

YTL Communications had applied for use of frequencies in the 700 band of pay TV, based on the Digital Broadcast TV – Terrestrial 2 (DVB-T2), the second-generation of the current DVB-T standard which was recently ratified.

So YTL Communications was asked it to identify any of the current gaps in this band which it could use for its DVB-T2 service, which it plans to launch by the end of December 2011.

It should be noted that IPTV is individually streamed over a connection to each user's terminal, much like You Tube videos, placing incremental demands per concurrent user on core and backhaul network capacity.

This is much like how each person in a neighbourhood who washes his car or waters his lawn at the same time puts capacity demands on the water main serving his neighbourhood, and if the water main is not big enough, the water flow from each of their hoses would be slow - something we are only too well aware of with buffering streaming videos when Internet network bandwidth is insufficient.

DVB-T on the other hand is a broadcast TV, whereby one broadcast is received by multiple users, with options for them to provide feedback and requests over a separate fixed, cellular or WiMAX network. Broadcast radio or TV can be likened to rain, which does not fall any faster or slower those in a neighbourhood put out one or 10,000 buckets to collect the rain water.

Also, the advantage of DVB-T, which employs a multiplexing technique called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), is that it allows two or more transmitters operating at the same frequency to transmit different programmes, unlike analogue transmissions which would severely interfere with each other.

DVB-T is the most widely used digital broadcast TV standard worldwide. It's currently used in over 35 countries, including across Western Europe, Russia, India and Australia.

The DVB-T standard employs either 1,705 (said as “2k”) or 6,815 (8k) OFDM carriers depending on signal conditions, antenna spacing, pilot signal and guard interval sizes at a given site, while DVB-T2 employs from 1k up to 32k (around 27,280) carriers.

OFDM is also used with Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK), 16-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) and 64-QAM to increase capacity when signal conditions are good and to maintain communication under poorer signal conditions, such as during heavy rainfall.

Hence DVB-T is said to be more “spectrally efficient,” and allows for multiple programmes to be broadcast at the same frequency, hence allows more broadcasters to use the 700MHz band, in the case of Malaysia.

Internationally, DVB-T uses channels of 6, 7 or 8MHz bandwidth each, so that 80MHz block in the 700MHz  band can support at  least 10 channels.

However, neither the MCMC nor YTL has clarified how many channels YTL is asking for and whether it wants all of that 80MHz block or just a part of it.

While it seems inconceivable that the MCMC would give YTL Communications all of that 80MHz when it becomes available, since existing broadcasters will need channels in it too. That said, the issue could be that given the scarcity of available spectrum in the 700MHz band, parties concerned, which are mostly cellular operators, may be concerned that there may not be available channels for them to use, especially for DVB-H broadcasts - a mobile variant of DVB-T – received on DVB-H enabled mobile phones.

Readers may recall that some years back, U Mobile launched DVB-H service but had since suspended it pending spectrum allocation.

So  clarification on the number of channels YTL is asking for would go a long way to allay the current fears that YTL will have a “monopoly” of this spectrum space.

The MCMC's press release follows in full below.

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MCMC Clarifies on 700Mhz Spectrum Allocation

28 November 2010, Cyberjaya - The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) wish to clarify on the various media and news reports surrounding the issue of allocation in the 700MHz band to YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL).

Firstly, no assignment had been issued to YTL for them to offer pay TV broadcasting using the 700MHz band as reported.   The operating licence issued to them on 30 August 2010 is for a content applications service provider individual licence (CASP licence) to provide subscription based Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services using their 2.3GHz WiMAX network.  The duration of the operating licence is for five years.

MCMC would also like to clarify that it is assessing a detailed business plan by YTL for the roll out of digital pay TV and not 4G mobile services as reported.  

MCMC would like to iterate that no spectrum assignments has been issued to YTL Communications Sdn Bhd in the 700MHz spectrum band for pay TV broadcasting, hence the reports and commentaries on a spectrum issuance are inaccurate.

Further, under the Malaysia's National Spectrum Plan, 700MHz spectrum band is allocated for broadcasting service and not for Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G mobile services as speculated in the various media articles and reports. The ownership of all spectrum bands remains at all times with the Government of Malaysia. [End]