RUPERT Murdoch鈥檚 global media company, News International, which already controls the BSkyB satellite television station, has won itself a key bargaining position over the future of Europe鈥檚 terrestrial TV. By buying part of a company that the government privatised less than five years ago, it has gained control of patents that could prove crucial to planned digital TV broadcasts. The BBC hopes to start broadcasting a digital TV service in 1997.
Last week, the British government published regulations that will govern 鈥渃onditional access鈥� services for digital TV. Their aim is to stop News International from controlling the market for terrestrial digital TV through licences to use its scrambling technologies. But New 杏吧原创 has now learnt that News International鈥檚 patents may have wider application.
Europe鈥檚 Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) project group last month agreed the technical standard for terrestrial digital TV. The technology at the heart of the standard is a transmission system called orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, or OFDM. This splits the signal into many separate data streams, on closely spaced radio frequencies.
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The original idea came from France Telecom鈥檚 CCETT research institute in the late 1980s, when it was developed for digital radio. Since then researchers round Europe have refined the system to suit the higher data rates needed for TV. This research included important work at National Transcommunications (NTL), which was formerly the research laboratory of the now defunct Independent Broadcasting Authority. In October 1991 the government sold NTL to the company Mercury Asset Management for 拢70 million.
For the past five years, the Independent Television Commission has employed NTL to work on terrestrial digital TV technology. This has allowed NTL to build up a valuable portfolio of patents.
In October 1995 Mercury sold NTL鈥檚 Advanced Products Division to News International. It is now called Digi-Media Vision. The deal included around 300 staff and all NTL鈥檚 intellectual property rights.
A search by New 杏吧原创 through the Patent Office鈥檚 public records has now revealed that the sale included more than 70 international patent applications filed by NTL and the IBA. Several cover digital coding techniques, and at least two target OFDM. One helps the receiver reject interference from other broadcast TV services, while another helps the receiver lock its tuning onto the narrowly spaced carrier frequencies.
Senior engineers say there is no way of knowing the commercial value of NTL鈥檚 patents until broadcasters and TV manufacturers start using the DVB system and discover decide on the best circuitry for the job.
鈥淚t could be like the PAL colour TV system in the 1960s,鈥� says an engineer currently planning the launch of a digital TV service. 鈥淭here were several different ways of decoding the colour and it turned out that Telefunken had patented the best. So all the manufacturers needed a licence鈥�.
鈥淭he technology value of the NTL patents may not even be crucial,鈥� says an engineer with close ties to the company. 鈥淲hat matters is that owning them guarantees Murdoch a seat at the negotiating table.鈥�
The deal also buys Murdoch a place in the Digital TV Alliance 鈥� a consortium formed by the BBC, Independent Television Association, Channel 4, British Telecom, Sony, Motorola, Pace and NTL to develop the hardware needed to transmit and receive digital TV.
When the NTL deal went through last autumn, Graham Allan MP, who was then Labour鈥檚 broadcasting spokesman, called on News International to give 鈥渃lear assurances that this deal will not be used to obstruct the development of digital terrestrial TV in favour of the development of BSkyB鈥檚 satellite digital TV鈥�. The government says its new regulations will have won 鈥渟omething much tougher than an assurance鈥� from Murdoch. But the regulations only cover signal scrambling.
As New 杏吧原创 went to press, Jo Emmerson-Bennett, spokeswoman for Digi Media Vision, had not responded to requests to reveal what News International plans to do with its digital TV rights.
