We’ve had a number of emails here at MuxCo HQ asking about the launch dates of our multiplexes. Some of these have been spurred on by some updates on BBC local radio station websites, for example from our friends at BBC Radio Gloucester:

“The new Gloucestershire “multiplex” will be on air by early 2009.  The operator’s timetable has changed slightly due to technical refinements that are being made to frequency planning across the UK”.

Now, what exactly does that mean?

Well, actually there are two issues that are causing our multiplex launch dates to move.  The first is our negotiations with our transmitter operator and the second, as alluded to above, are some ongoing industry discussions.

Firstly, transmission. Once a multiplex is awarded a licence, there then begins a process of technical and price negotiation with a transmission provider. There are a number of elements that change from multiplex to multiplex after the award right up until launch:

Has the owner of a particular mast changed their access rules or reached their capacity constraints since we submitted the application?  Are there new international frequency clearance issues?  Could a location/power change overcome these?

To put it simply, are the transmitters that we had planned to use still viable as sites and remain the most effective and efficient solutions, or might alternatives sites be better all round?

We also need to ensure we’re not missing a trick when it comes to getting the best deal for our service providers.  Might there be a new local contribution point for local service providers which could save them money?

All of this makes each contract individual and different and it takes time to sort out these issues and that’s what we’ve been working on since the licence awards.  However, we’ve got an extra element of complexity as our chosen transmission company – NGW, are in the process of being acquired by the other main transmission contractor – Arqiva. This means that whilst we could sign a contract with NGW, the operation of it might be with some of the Arqiva team and use some of the Arqiva infrastructure.

As a simple example, let’s look at BBC Radio Wales. The BBC may decide that it will broadcast the same version of BBC Radio Wales to all of the multiplexes in that nation.  Today that would mean we would start a fresh installation with NGW as BBC Radio Wales isn’t currently on NGW’s DAB network. This would mean that brand shiny new communications lines (probably through a third party like BT), would need to be ordered as well as some equipment for both their end and ours. Some of these costs would be borne by MuxCo and some of these would be passed on to the BBC.

Now when Arqiva take over NGW, all this could change. BBC Radio Wales is already on the Arqiva DAB network so, potentially, we would only have to pay some access costs to get the service on one of our multiplexes, potentially saving everybody a significant amount of money.

The difficulty is that because there are competition issues between NGW and Arqiva, they can’t work together, yet, to discuss how they are going to integrate their networks. This means that there are a significant number of uncertainties about how and for how much our networks are going to operate. We’re not very keen to agree a load of things now to see that there was a better way of doing this – from a coverage and a cost basis – in a couple of weeks time when the two companies can work together properly.

The second thing that’s been happening is some inter-industry discussions about the development of DAB. This includes the discussions happening about 4digital’s national multiplex and their relationship (if any) with Digital One and the work the Digital Radio Working Group is doing. There has also been some discussion about frequencies and coverage levels of the existing local multiplexes. Once again whilst this doesn’t necessarily affect us per se, there’s likely to be some knock-on effect that could mean we would be able to do something extra and improve our service. We therefore don’t want to commit everything to stone to find out in a few weeks something changes and we could have got a better deal for everyone – ourselves, our services and at the end of the day, our listeners.

So, where are we with our launches then? As we haven’t signed our contracts with NGW we don’t have any fixed dates. We have, however, overcome many of the contractual elements and MuxCo specific issues and the next step will be to take this to NGW’s new bosses – Arqiva – and go through our plans. After this we can then sign them and Gregory (who sits opposite me) can look a little less stressed.

We currently hope to be able to launch our first three multiplexes in the first half of 2009.