The Government approves the new National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television

The executive regulates certain aspects for the release of the second digital dividend and gives the green light to subsidies intended to offset the costs derived from the re-antennation of buildings affected by the release of the 694-790 MHz frequency band.

He Council of Ministers approved this Friday, June 21, two Royal Decrees related to telecommunications. The first of them approves a new National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television and regulates the call second digital dividend, by releasing the 700 MHz band of the radio spectrum currently occupied by Digital Terrestrial Television to make room for 5G technology.

The second Royal Decree approves the granting of aid to neighboring communities, to cover the adjustments they have to make to their DTT signal reception equipment, as a result of the re-antennaization of buildings.

The complete process of the second digital dividend must be concluded before June 30, 2020, complying with the schedule established by the European Union. In this way, as of June 30, 2020, operators will be able to begin deploying talk about 5G in this frequency band.

The acting Government spokesperson, Isabel Celaá, explained that both standards have an important social impact because 5G technology will allow access to the information that circulates on the network in a much faster and more powerful way. In addition, it will provide better coverage to rural or isolated areas, which will contribute to reducing the digital divide.

Celaá has indicated that the European Union has asked its Member States to launch this Second Digital Dividend to coordinately release frequencies for mobile communications services over 5G networks.

The New National Technical Plan for DTT identifies the radio channels currently used by television and replaces them with new radio channels in a lower band (470-694 MHz). However, the existing channel offering will be maintained, which will have to evolve to high definition before January 1, 2023.

Aid for neighborhood communities

The change in DTT frequency implies that they will have to adapt collective television reception facilities in most of the national territory. In the case of individual ones, only the televisions will have to be retuned.

With the aim of minimizing the impact on citizens, the Executive spokesperson has announced that the second royal decree regulates the direct granting of subsidies worth 150 million of euros so that the affected neighborhood communities can pay for the adaptation.

Thus, the affected neighborhood communities will receive an amount that will range between 104.3 and 677.95 euros (the same amount that was offered during the first Digital Dividend, in 2015, with the respective CPI adjustment since then).