Summary

  • ComReg says spectrum is reserved for six digital terrestrial television multiplexes, while two are used. Its October information notice lays out three post-2030 paths; it chooses none.
  • The same notice says 7% of TV households rely solely on DTT and 3% rely solely on DTT without broadband, about 47,000 households. Gigabit coverage reaching 92% of premises is an availability measure, not a count of households already using an affordable substitute.

The clean count and the awkward one

ComReg has given Ireland’s spectrum debate a tidy diagram. The 470–694 MHz sub-700 band is reserved for six digital terrestrial television multiplexes. Two are in use. On a spectrum slide, four vacant slots look like an invitation to improve the utilization chart.

The household slide has worse manners. The Commission for Communications Regulation’s October 2026 Information Notice says 7% of TV households rely solely on digital terrestrial television, delivered through RTÉ’s Saorview platform. Three per cent rely solely on DTT and have no broadband: about 47,000 households. The second figure is the migration problem in its sharpest form. It identifies homes for which the fashionable alternative—watching television over an internet connection—is not presently available as a connection at all.

The arithmetic is not a referendum on whether DTT is popular. It is a test of what a spectrum-efficiency calculation counts. A multiplex can be tallied in a regulator’s table. A household’s replacement service requires several more entries: a connection that is actually subscribed to, a price the household can pay, a television or receiver that can use it, and continued access to public-service channels.

ComReg’s notice reports gigabit broadband coverage at 92% of premises in Q1 2026, measured in Eircodes. It points to a 100% coverage target by 2028. These are useful measures of where a network can reach. They do not report how many households subscribe, what those subscriptions cost, whether they can sustain television use, or whether the remaining DTT-only homes are among the addresses counted as covered. Coverage is the map; take-up is the household’s bill and working connection.

That distinction matters because the regulator is comparing a physical network’s reach with another network’s capacity. Saorview is free-to-air and ComReg says it covers 98% of households. Broadband TV can deliver more capacity and higher-definition services, but its availability is not the same as a replacement already in the living room. The distribution system does not migrate when a coverage percentage rises. Someone has to buy, install, explain and pay for what comes next.

Three routes out of the band

ComReg’s notice is an information document for planning and stakeholder discussion. It does not announce a closure date or allocate the band to mobile operators. It says future use is likely to change after 2030 and gives three scenarios.

The baseline keeps DTT in the full band, while acknowledging that use is likely to change at some point after 2030. Partial release shares the band with other uses and requires a DTT migration project. Full release decommissions DTT and moves its households to another television platform. The last route has the cleanest spectrum diagram and the largest household instruction: find another way to receive television.

The previous 700 MHz migration is a useful price tag on the word “transition”. It ran from 2013 to 2020—seven years—involved negotiations with the United Kingdom and France, and included €8.1 million in State compensation, in 2020 prices, to 2rn for incremental costs. That was a spectrum move, not a bill for every household’s television replacement. A future plan would have to say who pays for broadcaster equipment, transmitter work, receiver changes, installation help and households’ alternatives. “Migration” compresses all of those invoices into one polite noun.

There is a public-interest layer too. The European Union’s Decision 2017/899 makes 470–694 MHz available for terrestrial broadcasting, including free television, until at least 2030. It requires attention to national broadcasting needs and cross-border interference when other uses are introduced. The band’s radio boundary crosses national borders whether or not policy papers do. ComReg specifically points to decisions in the UK and France as important to Ireland’s options.

The decision sequence therefore has three clocks. European and neighbouring-country coordination sets the spectrum envelope. Broadcasters and network operators must decide what to build and when. Households must have a working, affordable substitute before the old service leaves. Put those clocks in the wrong order and one side gets to call its stranded investment “inefficient” while another is still waiting for the installer.

Count the move before celebrating the release

The hard missing number is not the share of households that use DTT alone; ComReg supplies that. It is a joined count of those households’ viable replacements: fixed-broadband take-up, service price, equipment and installation needs, and access to the relevant public-service channels. The notice does not connect its coverage map to that household-level migration ledger. That specific count would change the distributional assessment.

ComReg says the 7% and 3% shares are expected to decline over time. That forecast may prove right. The operational question is whether a migration plan measures the decline before it spends it. If the next policy paper compares spectrum capacity with broadband availability, it will show a national network map. If it also reports household take-up and replacement costs, it will show whether the people asked to move can do so.

The spectrum chart already has its numbers: six reserved multiplexes, two in use. The household chart needs more than one percentage. Until the regulator can show who has a usable alternative, the four apparent spare slots are the easy part of the calculation.

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