The United Kingdom's House of Lords Communications Committee has proposed that broadcasting be moved away from terrestrial delivery and that IPTV be adopted as the primary means of distribution.
The committee's report, Broadband for All--An Alternative Vision, even questions the government strategy to roll out superfast broadband and suggests that the people might be better served by ensuring universal access.
The report's main concerns are how the U.K. will design and deploy its broadband infrastructure--including serving more rural areas with at least a modicum of speed. The conclusion is that universal broadband is preferable to pockets of high-speed broadband so that the entire country is migrated to the benefits of the internet. One of those benefits, it continues, is changing the way television is delivered and received by making better use of the Internet.
"It is likely that IPTV services will become ever more widespread, and eventually the case for transferring the carriage of broadband content, including public service broadcasting, from spectrum (airwaves) to the Internet altogether will become overwhelming," the report states. "As such, it might be argued that the spectrum's current use for fixed, broadcast purposes is wasteful."
That having been established, the report recommends that the government "consider the desirability of the transfer of terrestrial broadcast content from spectrum to the Internet and the consequent switching off of broadcast transmission over spectrum."
For more:
- see this report (.pdf)
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