Il tender for the auction of digital terrestrial television frequencies will be finalized within 30-40 days. This was announced today by the Minister of Development, Corrado Passera, underlining that he does not intend to leave the practice to the next government.
“We will immediately set in motion the finalization of the tender and the disciplinary in order to complete the operation – the minister told Radio Anch'io -. From today we work on it because we never gave up. Technically, it takes around 30-40 days for both the announcement and the disciplinary, but we certainly don't leave the ball ahead".
Meanwhile, yesterday Agcom gave the go-ahead for the definitive provision on the rules for the auction of digital terrestrial television frequencies: the three multiplexes with the most valuable frequencies will be the subject of a tender between new entrants and minor operators, from which they will remain therefore excluding Rai, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media. The regulation was partially modified to protect pluralism, after being examined by the European Commission.
Today, in an interview with “La Repubblica”, the president of AgCom, Angelo Maria Cardani, clarified that “the frequency auction, in the previous version of this provision, envisaged the sale of six national networks or multiplexes. Too many. We we reduce the nets for sale from the original six to just three. Let's restore order to the present and imagine a virtuous frequency planning up to 2020", added the Guarantor, recalling that the "really coveted" frequencies are those of mobile telephony, "which is hungry for bandwidth to multiply its services".
Passera also underlined the importance of the next auction for new generation mobile phones: "Let's not forget that the very important thing, which will be worth billions for our country and for the state coffers, is the decision to free up the so-called frequencies in the 700. They are not the subject of this auction, but they will be the subject of the auction for the next generation of mobile phones: that yes, as the last one has already done, will bring billions into the state coffers”.
