Political favours were granted to E-Networks

Dec 01, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Editor’s Note: This concludes Leonard Craig’s response to Tony Vieira which was carried in our Tuesday edition under the caption, “Leonard Craig takes issue with Tony Vieira.”
If Tony Vieira wants to remain relevant, he should come to the future; a future where even cable TV in its current forms will be overcome by shapes in the internet industry. To help sort out the distinguishable differences in various types of TV broadcasting, these services were developed with different reference names ever since the 1960s and 70s. Traditional Broadcast TV was referred to as Over the Air TV Broadcasting or Terrestrial TV Broadcasting, while cable was referred to as Subscription TV Service or just Subscription TV Broadcasting, while Satellite TV service is usually referred to as Terrestrial Satellite or Free to Air Satellite Broadcasting and the paid version is usually referred to as Subscription Satellite Broadcasting.
I don’t want to speak for the NFMU which is the competent authority to deal with all spectrum issues, but please allow me to quickly address the cockeyed non analytical manner in which the matter of Jamaica receiving $25M US Dollars for its 700 Mhz band was addressed. The deal was for 10 years which means Jamaica is actually receiving 2.5M per year for 10 years paid in advance. That works out to be $500M GYD per year. In Guyana we are currently receiving roughly about $300M GYD annually from Digicel and GTT who are sharing spectrum in Guyana. Compare Guyana with a population of 750,000 people, less international travel and a smaller digital footprint than a Jamaican population of over 2M crammed into a small island. When considered pound for pound we are receiving more per capita for the use of our spectrum than Jamaica, as such, auction may not be the best option for Guyana at this time.
There are lots more that need to be put in place before spectrum auction is possible. And Finally, I wish to address the issue raised concerning E-Networks. Even though that company denies it, I too believe that political favors were granted to it at the expense of many others. Evidence of it being godfathered were attempts by the last administration to specifically name E-Networks as being entitled to telecoms licence, when the previous Telecoms Bill laid in the 10th Parliament. Having said that, I accept that there needs to be a levelling of the field with respect to cable broadcasting, but banishing the use of the 600-700 MHz band is not the way to accomplish that. Confining everyone to the 2.3 to 2.7 GHz band is throwing Guyana right back into the Dark Ages, the world has long evolved from that spectrum for wireless cable broadcasting service; in fact, there is no active manufacturer on the planet that has a production line to outfit a cable operation in that broadcast range.
All the equipment available will be used or refurbished since such products are end of life products for which technical support will not be available. Do we really want to do this to Guyana? Besides all of that, it is most inefficient for modern wireless cable broadcasting system, inefficient not because of the distance of the signal propagation, any sensible operator can overcome that impediment, but because of the compression carrier technology it uses. It uses the MPEG 2 picture compression format and uses a larger inter-block bandwidth increment to pipe data, so in an 80MHz block an operator can pack up to 40 channels. Any child who has played a video on a computer or a smart phone or has downloaded from Youtube knows the MPEG 2 technology is dead, done and dusted.
The MPEG 4 and H.264 video formats which have received several reinventions and upgrades are also dying to HEVC and other format which deliver HDTV more efficiently and at higher bit rates allowing more channels to fit within a given interblock band. As such advancement in video technology is allowing carriers to pack as much as 120 channels in a 40Mhz block. And these advancements in video compression technology are not available on MMDS in the 2-3 GHz bands. Around the world the DVBt-2 broadcast technology in the 600-700 MHz space is what is being used. Further, with Guyana’s move to digital TV by 2020 or just beyond, with the new Digital Terrestrial Broadcast Technology available all of Guyana’s Over the Air TV service for the foreseeable future can be catered for with the spectrum utilized by just about 6 UHF analog channels. The question is what do we do with the additional broadcast spectrum? The more likely occupation will be subscription TV. Many of the current Cable Broadcasters have lamented that they were unfairly treated by the last administration and some of these claims seem credible, but I have not been advised that there is a single application lying at the GNBA for cable broadcasting 600-700 MHz band. Operators who spoke to me I have repeatedly said to them that they should apply to be where E-Networks is and that will give the GNBA a legitimate reason to say to E-Networks, there are others who want to be where you are and there is hardly any place to put them please dress down (or some other form of regulatory action). I had made a commitment to make representation on their behalf with the Government for concessionary relief to allow them to invest in the sector.
I had already made approaches to the Hon. Prime Minister and the Minister of Business to feel out their willingness to entertain such an approach, they both agreed in principle with my suggestion but wants to see concrete proposals. No existing cable broadcaster ever approached with a preliminary proposal of how the wish to be enabled to compete with E-Networks. Ultimately Guyana has to decide if the aim is to wipe out E-Networks simply because it received favours from the last government or is it that we want to curb the near monopoly status it is enjoying and expose it to formidable robust competition.
Leonard Craig

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