- Communicates to the European Commission the need to postpone the following phases of the second digital dividend due to the exceptional situation experienced as a result of COVID-19
- The Second Digital Dividend is the process by which the frequencies assigned to television channels in the 700MHz band are changed in order to leave it free to be used to deploy future 5G networks and it was scheduled to end on June 30
- The 700MHz auction is also postponed in order to facilitate the additional effort being made by telecommunications operators, focused on maintaining the connectivity of companies and people in this time of health emergency
March 30, 2020.- The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has informed the European Commission that, due to the exceptional situation derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, it has decided to postpone the date for the release of the 700 MHz band, a process known as Second Digital Dividend.
This process consists of changing the frequencies assigned to television channels in the 700MHz band in order to use them to deploy future 5G networks, it is carried out by mandate of the European Union (Decision 2017/899 of the European Parliament and of the Council) , and had a deadline for its execution as June 30, 2020. However, the Decision itself already provided for the possibility that the deadline could be postponed for certain reasons such as force majeure, as is the case at hand.
The communication to the European Commission explains that the new date will be determined based on when the containment measures adopted to deal with COVID-19 end. In any case, it is stated that it will be the minimum time required to complete the process.
As a consequence of this postponement, telecommunications operators will not be able to have the 700 MHz frequency band available for the deployment of 5G services on the scheduled date. Operators are making an additional effort to deal with the crisis caused by COVID-19 and to keep people and companies connected, so it has also been decided to postpone the tender for the 700 MHz band. Frequency bands for 5G services is a decision taken in the last days by other countries of the European Union, such as France, Austria and Portugal.
Since the state of alarm was declared, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has given instructions to maintain, as long as the health of the workers is safeguarded, the execution of the proceedings of the process.
It has also been decided to keep emissions at simulcast (simultaneous broadcasting through the new and old frequencies), suspend the actions of direct changes in the radio channel and keep the equipment of the abandoned radio channels in the collective TV reception facilities, all in order to guarantee, at this time of health emergency, the reception of the digital terrestrial television service to citizens.
The postponement decision, which is not a suspension, is made after finding that the mobility restriction measures are inevitably causing delays in the original planning that prevent the process from ending before June 30.
