The Spanish government will reportedly have to pay the telco operators Telefonica, Vodafone and Orange at least €9 million a month (€300,000 a day) if it fails to release the 800 Mhz frequencies by January 1st 2015. These frequencies are now used by DTT channels which should migrate to other bands to allow the provision of 4G services by the telco operators.

The government estimates that the minimum compensation for the delay would amount to €100,000 a day to each operator which totals a payout of €1.3 billion (Telefonica and Vodafone €450 million each one and Orange €400 million) in 2011 for those frequencies from 2015 to 2030. The compensation would be mostly for the losses in the exploitation of 4G services over that band.

The Administration had planned to bring forward the migration to January 2014 but failed to meet that deadline following the Supreme Court’s decision to close down 9 DTT channels after deeming the awarding of licences as unlawful. After many delays, the government will implement the Supreme Court’s closure order before May 6th with migration starting at the same time and a race to meet the 2015 deadline.

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Categories: Articles, Broadcast, DTT/DSO, Policy, Regulation, Telco