Clearing the clutter of telecoms past

The last few years have seen an explosion of aerials and dishes needed to access rapidly changing TV reception, creating implications for social landlords, whether that is in planning, building regulations, safety or simply aesthetics – but Crystal Electronics helps them to resolve the issues and clear the clutter

From the perspective of the home viewer at least, the technology behind our television reception appeared static for decades, and it encouraged us to quickly take it for granted. As long as the telly worked, everyone was happy, and that essentially boiled down to a well-situated aerial.

Change, such as it was, came slowly. Sure, there was a buzz for our grandparents as monochrome gave way to colour sets, then in the 80s came Channel 4, followed by Five in the following decade. The technology in the television sets advanced, but essentially it relied on the same tried-and-tested broadcasting system of analogue carrier signals transmitted and received by aerials.

Then the pace of change went critical and those analogue aerials were no longer enough. The rise of multi-channel TVs, satellite services such as Sky and foreign language channels, all exploded on to the scene, giving rise to a literal mushrooming of dishes and aerials appearing on buildings the length and breadth of Britain.

And, of course, the revolution continues unabated, with the rise of digital services that will see the imminent end – in around 18 months or so – of that original analogue infrastructure.

Digital switchover, the process of ensuring that reception equipment is upgraded so that viewers can continue to receive a signal, is the current big story in the development of television, but while ensuring continuity of service for viewers, it is also offering the chance to consolidate the myriad of aerials and dishes that have sprouted up in such a haphazard fashion.

The issue is particularly critical for social landlords, or anyone else managing large communal buildings, be they hotels, care homes, or blocks of flats. The issue isn’t just one of ensuring the property is ready and enabled for switchover. The pace of change has been such that no one has been able to keep up with the implications, let alone the technology: for social landlords there are issues relating to planning, building regulations, building insurance, health and safety, not to mention the appearance of properties that have become peppered with dishes – and not all of these dishes remain in use.

“Going by Sky’s own statistics, 40 per cent of the satellite dishes that are out there are redundant now,” said Dean Port, managing director of Crystal Electronics. “The person who had the dish fitted has moved away, nobody knows about the old dish, so it gets left there and the next person puts up another dish. We’ve encountered blocks where there are 24 flats but 37 dishes.”

Essentially, Crystal Electronics goes in and sorts out the clutter. Okay, there’s more to it than that, but by installing integrated reception systems (IRS), it provides a platform neutral reception system that covers all a resident’s needs courtesy of a reception array on the roof which is then wired into the individual homes. The IRS provides for terrestrial analogue television, Freeview, Freesat, and DAB radio reception. The installation also provides accessibility for commercial digital and satellite services, without the need for a resident to fit additional receiving equipment: they just plug in their box and subscribe.

Televisions and other equipment are plugged into a wall socket – a single square socket – that provides two satellite connections, a TV socket and a radio socket.

The installations are also PAT tested and earth bonded to ensure there is no fire hazard risk from lightning strikes. And once the IRS and wall sockets are in place and wired up, then that clutter of dishes can be removed, thereby addressing planning, safety and aesthetic issues.

“Our job, really, is tidying up the mess of the last 15 years, working with housing associations on multi-dwelling properties to come up with a solution that helps them,” Port said.

The company, based in W ellingborough, Northants, has been fitting reception technology for some 25 years, and these days it works across the UK. It is working with over 20 RSLs and councils and is catering to the maintenance needs of around one million homes within Britain. Clients include Stevenage Homes, Corby Borough Council, Wrekin Housing Trust, Cambridge City Homes, Croydon Church Homes, Orbit and others.

Much of Crystal Electronics’ work comes through the procurement network Fusion21, of which it is a member, and the Northern Housing Group, but it is also an approved installation partner for Sky TV, through which it is also sometimes invited to tender for contracts.

By the nature of the work, and the clientele, the work schedule can vary. I t may be that the properties they are expected to upgrade and declutter are located in a contained area, or they may be spread across a disparate number of neighbourhoods. The company works with the social landlord to plan and schedule the installation programme, but involving tenants is just as crucial to successfully executing a contract. Crystal Electronics likes to start early, following up the introductory lettershot from the client, with one of its own. The letter introduces the company and provides freephone details where tenants can call if they have any queries and it also has a tenant liaison officer who works on each contract and acts as the immediate point of contact.

“We would also look to arrange, through residents associations, as many meetings as we can – the more meetings the better – to explain what it is that we are doing,” said Port.

For all that this is a ‘tech savvy’ age, not everybody is equally familiar with the new technology, and even then there is what we might call cultural blindspots when it comes to making the transition from old to new. After installing the new system, helping tenants to ‘adjust their sets’ as it were and ensure they are up to speed with the cultural shifts, is a further part of the company’s provision.

“There can be issues with people tuning their equipment. The process is all part of the modern world, to access new channels or download updated software for the set-top box, but not everyone understands that,” said Port. “For 50 years it’s not been part of our culture to retune our telly when something goes wrong. We’ve only ever tuned the telly after we’ve bought it.”

Frequency allocations can also shift as part of the process of digital switchover, meaning that a box tuned for a particular channel yesterday may have lost the signal today – and so require retuning. That’s part of the switchover process and not something that we are used to thinking about; for many it’s not yet second nature to consider such factors.

“TV is a lot more complex than it was,” Port added, but helping to ease people through the transition is all part of the service. In a sense, this is another way in which Crystal Electronics is helping to clear away the clutter of telecoms past.