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- September 2014 >> ANCOM Launches for Consultation the Draft Terms of Reference for Awarding New Digital Television Multiplexes
ANCOM consultă caietul de sarcini pentru alocarea unor noi multiplexuri de televiziune digitală
25.09.2014
Today, 25 September 2014, the Romanian Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) has launched for public consultation a draft decision and the draft Reference Terms in preparation of an auction for awarding the two national digital television multiplexes unawarded through the previous procedure, as well as the 40 regional and the 19 local multiplexes.
National multiplexes will cover the whole country with digital terrestrial television services, whereas each of the regional and local multiplexes will serve specific assignment areas, which may cover one county or one locality.
Similarly to the auction organised in March-June 2014, the multiplexes will be awarded by a competitive selection procedure, which requires that each bidder submit an initial bid, indicating the number of multiplexes it wishes to purchase. If the demand exceeds the number of available multiplexes, the auction may continue with primary rounds for the multiplexes where the demand exceeds the supply. For the remaining categories, the winners will be designated based on the initial bid. After the winners and the prices of all the wanted multiplexes have been established, the auction will continue by an allocation round through which the multiplexes will be awarded to the winning bidders based on the additional amounts they are willing to pay in order to acquire a certain frequency allocation.
All the multiplexes will be granted for a 10-year period, while the winners will be able to start the provision of commercial television broadcasting services as of 17 June 2015. By 1 May 2017, the winners of the two national multiplexes will have to put into operation at least 36 transmitters, whereas the winners of the regional or local multiplexes will have to launch into operation at least one transmitter in each assignment area.
The minimum licence fee, i.e. the starting price within the auction, for each of the two national multiplexes, is EUR300,000, whereas the one for the regional and the local multiplexes ranges between EUR12,000 for a regional multiplex in Bucharest and EUR1,000 for a multiplex allotted within a locality that is not a county capital. The licence fees have been established by the Government in February 2014.
“The auction will be launched towards the end of November, and the number of awarded multiplexes and the winners will be announced at the beginning of 2015”, declared Bogdan IANA, executive director within ANCOM, to the audience of the International Digital Forum 2014.
A digital multiplex is a group of radio broadcasting and television programmes, additional multimedia services and other associated identification data transmitted from the emission stations to the end-users by terrestrial radio means, using digital modulation within the limits of a standard television channel/frequency block.
The auction documents are available for consultation, in Romanian, here. The interested persons are invited to send their comments and suggestions, by 27.10.2014, to the ANCOM headquarters in 2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3, or directly to the ANCOM Registry Office or by means of the Authority’s regional offices. Comments may also be sent by fax to +40.372.845.402 or by e-mail to consultare@ancom.org.ro.
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