Soria believes it is possible to advance the digital dividend to next year

Despite the “slowdown” caused by the Supreme Court ruling, which annulled the award of nine DTT channels because it was done without competition, the Executive plans to liberalize frequencies for 4G telephony on January 1.

The Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria, has insisted that the Government will comply “with high probability” with the objective of bringing forward by one year the 'digital dividend', liberalization of television frequency for fourth generation mobile technologies, by January 1, 2014 and, in any case, before 2015.

Soria has recognized Europa Press that "it is a different objective than the one with the previous Government in January 2015, but we persist in the idea due to the advantages for the telecommunications sector."
For the minister, the Supreme Court ruling annulling the award of nine DTT channels has slowed down this process.

Regarding whether the Government would reassign these frequencies, José Manuel Soria has stated that the Government does not rule it out, "but any type of solution has to be within the framework of legality to prevent this decision from generating an appeal that would bring another annulment."

The digital dividend, under debate

On May 9, the Business Development Institute (IFE) in collaboration with Panorama Audiovisual, are calling for a conference focused on the digital dividend.

To clarify the issues that are still pending regarding the digital dividend in these first months of the year, the Business Development Institute, in collaboration with Panorama Audiovisual, will organize a conference on May 9 in which prominent experts will participate.

The radio space is finite and 4G services will require more and more bandwidth to be able to offer new features and services. The deployment of LTE networks will mean new business opportunities but also great challenges such as the efficient management of the radio spectrum and its coexistence with digital terrestrial TV broadcasts.

The frequencies between 790 and 860 MHz (digital dividend) will no longer be used for the transmission of Terrestrial Television and will be assigned to mobile telephone operators to provide services starting in 2014. What consequences will this change entail?

The digital dividend represents a radical change for the sectors involved since there are still many unknowns to be resolved: readaptation, changes, costs, spectrum management, emergence of new business models based on mobile video... You. You can't stay on the sidelines!

Added to this are the changes made by the current Government with respect to the previous one and the Supreme Court ruling that understands that the licenses should have been awarded by public tender, although the ruling will not affect the current operators.

This conference, which will take place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Madrid, will address issues such as the current situation of DTT and future prospects, the implementation models of the Digital Dividend, Legal and regulatory aspects, costs derived from the implementation of the Digital Dividend, pay TV in the face of new emerging services, technological developments, present and future, new content distribution platforms, development of digital content, and the future of DTT in the face of new digital dividends.

La jornada sobre el dividendo digital estará presidida por Eladio Gutiérrez, ex-presidente de Impulsa TDT y socio-director de EGM Consultoría, y contará con la participación, entre otros, de Raúl Rubio (Baker&McKenzie), Josep Ventosa (Abertis Telecom), Alejandro Perales (AUC), Miguel Angel García-Argüelles (FENITEL), Pedro Alonso Manjón (SETSI), Miguel Ángel Cristóbal (Sapec), Pablo Romero (Yomvi/Canal+), Antonio Castillo (Panorama Audiovisual), Jordi Miró (Wuaki.Tv) y Antonio Fernández-Paniagua Díaz-Flores (Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Turismo).

Access to the program and registration, here.