Cable television in Ireland
Cablelink / NTL Ireland used Cryptovision, while some other companies, notably Cork Multichannel, used Jerrold (General Instrument) scrambling systems.
The five main Cities (Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Waterford), along with towns like Longford, Dungarvan, Clonmel, Thurles, Kilkenny etc.
In the early years of television Irish viewers had access to the BBC via signals coming from Northern Ireland and Wales.
The first major city outside Dublin to build a purpose-built Cable TV network under the new 1974 regulations was Waterford, which initially delivered service to some 6,000 homes in 1974.
[2] However, due to legislation regarding the use of microwave links at the time, companies were forced to lay untold kilometres of cable to get from the headend to the city.
[citation needed] Casey Cablevision of Dungarvan, County Waterford held the Irish record previously, with a 25 km (16 mi) line connecting to the Comeragh Mountains headend.
Further towns such as Thurles, Tipperary, Tullow, Ennis, Castlebar [dubious – discuss] and Birr would be cabled during the late 1980s.
[2] Long before any coaxial cable had been laid for the distribution of television in Ireland, the Irish were enjoying multi-channel TV.
[5] Even before the advent of Sky Digital in Ireland and later FTA UK Satellite, over 75% of households had ITV (UTV and/or HTV).
The attraction of the British channels and hence more choice, and better reception for many people, analogue terrestrial signals covered about 90% of the population.
In 1981 Marlin Communal Aerials Ltd. acquired Phoenix Relays Ltd and formed Dublin Cablesystems Ltd. (DCS).
[7] There was little regulation of cable systems during the early years, often it was there to redistribute British channels and improve RTÉ's reception.
MMDS rollout began in 1989, with the network of 29 cells forming a "national grid" being regulated for, if not intact by 1998.
[9] The introduction of MMDS proved controversial for a time in some rural areas which were accustomed to receiving multichannel services more cheaply via unlicensed UHF relay "deflector" or "rebeaming" systems.
According to the committee Ireland's cable network had evolved to gain better access to "off-air" signals coming from Britain.
The committee was advising that cable be treated as a national infrastructure and to be dealt with in a manner ready for the information age.
[11] Cable was an integral part of Ireland Information Infrastructure and the Department of Communications took an active role in regulating it technical and in regards content.
They were advised that 30-50 channels could be provided, but this would be at huge infrastructure costs and was not in the interest of customers, since many only had a 15-channel dial [13] With the merger of RTÉ Relays and DCS many customers were beginning to see better reception due to the integration of both systems, Cablelink had begun to reduce head-ends which help with reception issues.
The Minister for Communications Jim Mitchell asked for a review of the Restrictive practices in Dublin caused by a virtual monopoly that had been built by the new company.
The company was also in good finances; some smaller operators could end up out of business due to the high cost of maintaining their network.
The two largest cable companies in Ireland merge and form Chorus NTL owned by UPC.
Casey TV was bought out by Virgin Media in 2018 Originally responsibility for licensing and regulating cable services in Ireland lay with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs.
The system was eventually regulated by the Wireless Telegraphy (Wired Broadcast Relay Licence) Regulations of 1974 in to an exclusive franchise system, where one company holds a franchise to provider analogue cable television and radio services to a specific area.
The major revision of the legislation, Wireless Telegraphy (Programme Services Distribution) Regulations of 1999, brought in a new class of licence.
It also ran local text ads during its off hours (while broadcasting Sky radio) [20] In Waterford City, Cablelink's Cabletext service (a rolling noticeboard, which included programming such as the Munster Game and CTV) ran uninterrupted from 1988 until it was replaced by City Channel in 2007.
A highly successful and popular service, it was manned voluntarily exclusively by local Cablelink engineers.
Virgin Media Ireland (like most other cable operators in the world) provides what NTL initially marketed as triple play: Telephone, television and internet access.
[21] This caused Virgin Media to make major infrastructural developments in the old networks which had been badly maintained by both the owners and not regulated by any government bodies.
Ireland has several small independent CATV operators around the country - the biggest provider is that of Cablecomm in Longford.
Virgin Media (formerly NTL/Cabletel) is the licensed provider their network is entirely underground and offers telecom/broadband services alongside multichannel TV.
