Posted byAnna Klis-Davies, Community Engagement Team

A Statement by Outreach Solutions –

Outreach Solutions is working with a company called at800 to run a community outreach programme during the roll out of the UK’s 4G mobile network.

New 4G services enable super-fast internet on mobile phones. Some 4G signals may cause interference to Freeview – TV received through an aerial. Satellite and cable TV services will not be affected.

Your support
We are seeking your help to ensure that your staff are briefed about the potential 4G/TV interference issue in case you should receive any enquiries from your service users in the Newport Pagnell area as the 4G signals are activated.

About at800

at800’s role is to ensure that viewers who rely on Freeview for TV can continue to receive it, or are offered a suitable alternative, when 4G mobile services transmitted at 800 MHz are activated in their area.
at800 offers:

  • advice and free filters to all households
  • engineer visits to non-communal households that are solely reliant on terrestrial TV

Most interference can be solved by fitting a free filter to the TV. The filters can be fitted by the viewer or by an at800 engineer; they fix the problem by blocking the 4G signals. More information can be found here.

Outreach Solutions role
Outreach Solutions specifically engages with organisations that work with or support people who require some extra support, providing them with information to help their customers should they be asked for advice in relation to Freeview interference.

Specifically, we can help:

  • Viewers who are aged 75 and over
  • People who are in receipt of incapacity payments
  • People who are blind or partially sighted

Our remit is to ensure that this knowledge, help and support is made available at a community level from trusted local organisations in the areas which are affected.

Resource pack
We have some information for your use as follows:

We would appreciate it if you could forward this information to relevant staff members and volunteers.

If you are able to add some information to your website or include some content about the 4G roll out within your newsletter that would be most helpful. In addition, if you have a Facebook or Twitter page, we would be very grateful if you would post/tweet the following message: Some new 4G mobile signals could cause Freeview interference – let at800 know if this has affected your TVhttps://at800.tv

Chaperone services
There may, very occasionally, be a need to provide a chaperone, usually a local volunteer, to accompany an engineer when they visit an individual’s home to fit a 4G filter. If we are notified of a need for a chaperone we approach local VCS orgs such as yourselves to see if this is a service that you can provide.

We will pay for this service if it is something that you are able to assist with. These visits typically take around 30 to 40 minutes.

What we need to know is if this is something that your organisation would be able to provide i.e. a volunteer chaperone to accompany an engineer on an installation visit. Please contact Outreach Solution at – pso@outreachsolutions.org.uk