Ofcom reveals 2012 Freeview shortfalls

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/26/digitaltvradio.television

• Ofcom has revealed that by the digital switchover in 2012, when the government has promised 100% digital signal, up to a quater of houses in wales and northern ireland and a fith in northern england will not be able to recieve the signal, when they could recieve analogue signal before.
  
• This is because of "mountainous terrain interfering with terrestrial transmitter reception in some areas and the need to avoid the signal overlapping with the Republic of Ireland ." and other reigons like France, Belgium and The Netherlands.
• Ofcom said "There are simply not enough frequencies available to allow all the multiplexes to be available across the whole UK - we have to accept limitations in some areas, as do other countries,"
  
• "It is very expensive to build a transmission network that covers 98.5% of population,"
  

  "The commercial networks can achieve coverage of around 90% at lower cost, by using only 80 major transmitter sites." is their excuse.