Is our TV mobile or terrestrial? The Parable of the Hawker 持流動小販牌想做私房菜
The HKTV licensing saga has developed to war of words that makes little common sense. The Office of Communications Authority (OFCA) has warned that HKTV, who has acquired a mobile TV licence, might face legal challenge if its programs would be viewed on household TV sets (入屋). Oops! Mobile TV signals aren't supposed to get into our houses! But why the hell did my iPhone ring at home? Engineers or anyone with a science background would be confused. Lawyers may know why.
What a mobile TV licence can't do?
Here is a plausible theory. At the moment, only TVB and ATV are licensed to broadcast "free-to-air" to the public, and in 2007 they began to broadcast digitally using DTMB as the standard for signal transmission and reception.1 In its technical specification submitted to OFCA, HKTV has proposed to use the same standard in its mobile TV broadcasting system, and this would mean almost seamless reception of HKTV programs by most home TV sets which have already installed DTMB decoders. This, according to OFCA, is illegal since HKTV's licence only allows its programs to be viewed on mobile devices but not on household TV sets. Arguments around the use of DTMB standard for mobile or terrestrial TV broadcast are mostly irrelevant as it makes little sense to classify a system as mobile or terrestrial by the codec standard it uses to encode/decode a video signal. The point is that TVB and ATV are already there using DTMB, and since HKTV has been denied the legitimacy to operate on par with the two existing players, OFCA has no choice but to find ways to stop HKTV from operating using the same standard.
The Parable of the Hawker 持流動小販牌想做私房菜
An OFCA officer has tried to preach to the public with his parable of the hawker: “持流動小販牌想做私房菜”. You can't run a highbrow private kitchen with just a hawker licence. But wait a minute! That's not the same! The point isn't about the hawker trying to sell abalone or to stick to his curry fish balls. Didn't you actually ask the hawker to make sure that his patrons consume all the curry fish balls they've bought while they are still walking in the street, or to risk legal challenge if his patrons are found to consume the fish balls at home or at a fixed location.
In theory, TV signals would reach every location within the targeted area of coverage as allowed by the local law. Unless deliberate shielding is done, technically speaking, electromagnetic (EM) waves can't distinguish mobile device antennas (carried around by people) from household antennas (fixed to the rooftops). Antennas are just metals that pick up the EM signals. Of course technical parameters (e.g., speed of the moving receiver, multipath fading, resolution and frame rate of the video, codec, etc.) would come into play to determine the quality of the images being broadcast, and it is technically possible to restrict the viewing to selected or registered receivers by using additional security codes or passwords, but this is not the usual practice for free TV or mobile TV. Thus, in normal circumstances, as EM signals propagate freely through the air, it makes no sense to impose conditions upon a broadcasting system according to receivers being mobile devices (people walking in the street) or TV sets fixed in concrete premises (home audience).
More serious nonsense
While OFCA's warning or reminder to HKTV about its potential violation of the conditions of operation of its mobile TV licence sounds legally valid, its practicality is questionable. The reciprocal application of the conditions of limiting terrestrial broadcast to household or fixed location TVs is equally impractical. But the smart businessmen would surely know how to use this crooked reciprocal logic to ridicule the government. Ricky Wong (王維基) has enjoyed his serious act in inviting OFCA to investigate the possible violation of TVB and ATV of the conditions of their operation if their programs could be viewed by thousands of mobile devices in Hong Kong. Such investigation obviously makes no scientific sense!
Technology vs. law
Technology has been advancing unprecedentedly rapidly. Are the current telecommunication and broadcasting laws inadequate? Or is the government being inconsistent in applying those laws? Apparently, the broadcasting ordinance was perfectly fine 20 years ago as no one would likely be carrying a 100 pound TV set around or be enjoying TVB programs while riding on a star ferry. On the other hand, the communication ordinance was also perfectly adequate 20 years ago as communication devices were primarily just transmitting voice and very little data. But now, any one can watch TVB programs on smartphones, iPads or laptops equipped with cheap portable receivers,2 while communication devices are receiving huge data volume. It is not hard to see the fundamental inadequacy in regulating communication and broadcasting separately under mutually exclusive ordinances. Problems have already emerged, though the government chooses to ignore. Why local internet TVs are not regulated? Sure, under the communication ordinance, they aren't broadcasting!
March 2014
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