It was with some excitement that I tuned into RTE’s website recently to get the first live streamed web-cast of a major sporting event in the form of the Munster final replay between Cork and Kerry. Despite having access to a wired DSL connection offering upload speeds of 256Kbits/sec and download speeds of up to 1Mbits/sec, to my great disappointment, I was unable to get access to the footage on my PC. A ticker on the Sunday Game coverage on the analogue TV told me that the web cast of the final had not been possible due to circumstances beyond the national broadcaster’s control.
Officially, RTE reported that it had 9,927 successful unique visitors to the webcast. 230 were blocked from getting access because they had UK IP addresses and RTE only had rights to webacast the match to viewers on the island of Ireland. I was in Rathfarnham so how could I have been geoblocked?
Web casting woes
Immediately, I had flashbacks of great failure for internet video web- casting. In 2000, the famous Smyths pub on Dublin’s 4 Haddington Rd went up for sale and the auction was webcast ‘live’ by a company called Servecast. Again we failed to get access to the feed due to bandwidth congestion and the fact that most users had dial-up connections at that time.
In 2006, I had the bandwidth but RTE couldn’t deliver.
This failure on the part of the national broadcaster to deliver a flagship sporting event on the only digital platform currently available to it got me thinking about its greater digital strategy or lack of it. In August 2006, we can ask with good justification, where are the digital audio broadcast (DAB) radio services or indeed the Irish freeview digital TV services?
Trials go on
I’m afraid to report that are still very much in the trial phase for these services. They have become the norm in the UK where DAB radio owners and freeview set top box owners get access to high quality picture feeds, audio and interactive services. Thankfully, users with digital set top boxes in Ireland can get access to this great content from the UK. Those without Sky set top boxes in Ireland and who do not wish to pay Bskyb a subscription fee for its TV services are left with few alternatives in Ireland.
So, we are still languishing in trial mode despite that fact that the European Commission has proposed that analogue be switched off and the transition to digital television be made by 2012. But can we be confident that the national broadcaster will make the deadline? Sure, another trial for digital TV is to begin this month in Dublin, Meath and Louth and is set to run for 2 years. But didn’t RTE try this before in 2001? Then, it was pulled when the state broadcaster failed to find a private sector backer for its quasi-commercial four channel service. Can we really be confident that it will deliver this time when it cannot even deliver a web-cast of a national sporting event to a small pool of broadband users?
DAB in doldrums
DAB radio is similarly in the doldrums and the latest news is that RTE is seeking a DAB licence for a digital radio station to serve the east coast of Ireland. Once this is established RTE has said that it is committed to a national roll out.
I, for one, as a TV licence holder would like to call on the Department of Communications and the RTE Authority to accelerate the roll out of digital TV and radio services and to galvanise the national broadcaster’s platform for internet streaming and web casting. The time for trials has passed, consumers as licence holders and stakeholders are entitled to high quality, indigenous digital services from the public broadcaster.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers