Mobile Phones
Culture Media and Sport

Anna Soubry (Broxtowe, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport what his estimate is of the number and proportion of households (a) reliant on communal aerial systems and (b) using amplification equipment to boost television signal strength that will be affected by interference to their terrestrial digital television service from the use of spectrum by 4G mobile services.

Edward Vaizey (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Culture, Communications and Creative Industries), Business, Innovation and Skills; Wantage, Conservative)

The matter raised is an operational issue for the independent regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which is accountable to Parliament rather than Ministers. Accordingly, my officials have spoken to Ofcom, who advised:

On 23 February 2012, Ofcom published a second consultation on co-existence between new services in 800 MHz and existing digital terrestrial television services.

Within this consultation document Ofcom estimated that the number of households using signal amplifiers was 9 million of which up to 945,000 could be affected and the number of households using a communal aerial system was 5.6 million of which up to 953,000 households who use communal aerial systems could be affected. Ofcom estimates that the numbers of affected households could fall to 5,100 and 3,400 households respectively once a mixture of consumer based and selective mobile network based mitigation methods are applied.

A more detailed analysis is contained in the consultation which is available on Ofcom's website, and can be found using the link:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/coexistence-with-dtt/

This consultation closed on 19 April and Ofcom are considering the responses received and expect to make a statement in the summer.