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Households warned to expect 4G signal interference on their tellies

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By John Glenday, Reporter

June 6, 2013 | 2 min read

Londoners are being warned that the impending switch-on of 4G signals could disrupt their viewing pleasure through increased interference over the coming weeks via an industry funded leafleting campaign.

The mailer to households in the Greater London area warns that a roll-out of 4G mobile signals in the city over the coming weeks threatens to interfere with Freeview television as engineers from O2, 3 Mobile and Vodafone test their new systems.

These services operate at a frequency of 800MHz, perilously close in the spectrum to the 700MHz slot inhabited by Freeview.

It is feared that overlapping signals could glitch transmissions with sound, pictures or even entire channels lost to the ether.

Ofcom calculates that as many as 2m people could be affected by the work after extrapolating the volume and power of a new breed of base stations springing up across the capital, it predicts that up to 1 per cent of the population could be starved of television when 4G is rolled out nationwide.

To remedy the problem telecoms firm have ordered ‘a few million’ filters to be affixed to the back of affected televisions to rectify any issues.

A spokesman for at800, an umbrella body set-up by the industry to iron out any wrinkles, said: “We are scaled up for anticipated problems. But so far in tests in south-east London, although we have received calls from lots of households, any problems they have been having with their television have not been caused by interference from 4G."

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