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Formentera Council calls on Govern to revise DTT frequencies on island

xarxa2Formentera's councilor of the Environment and Information/Communication Technologies, Sílvia Tur, has drafted a letter to the director general of Innovation and Technological Development of the Govern Balear, Antonio Jorge Mateos Sastre, once again calling on the autonomous government to initiate use of the Sant Ferran DDT (or Digital Terrestrial Television) booster station and to revise the current digital television service available on the island of Formentera.

This booster station, or simply booster, was installed nearly two years ago, however it has never been put into use. On numerous occasions the Formentera Island Council has reiterated its request that the Govern Balear complete the remaining work on electrical connections that would enable the booster's use. This booster is the last that has yet to be installed on Formentera. It is located on the same plot of land as the water reservoir in Sant Ferran de ses Roques.

It is the Sant Ferran booster that will provide the island's most tourism-oriented locality – Es Pujols – with digital television coverage, in addition to providing signal to Punta Prima, Cala en Baster and part of Sant Ferran.

The most recent project plans, sent by the Govern Balear on 8 March 2011, anticipated completion of the antenna and start of signal emissions at the Sant Ferran booster station for 22 March of that same year. At present, the population of Formentera continues to await execution of the plans, which, according to an article by the public enterprise Multimèdia Illes Balears dated 29 August, have now been relegated to the budget activity for 2012.

The fact that this commitment was not upheld provokes an unjustified discrepancy in the quality of television service received by the residents of Sant Ferran, Punta Prima and Es Pujols, many of whom must contract private pay and satellite television services in order to enjoy the same programming as the rest of the island's inhabitants.

Start of data migration process as outlined by RD 365/2010
Royal Decree 365/2010 of the year 2010 establishes a plan for data migration to change the frequency of certain DTT channels. The change would serve the purpose of emptying the range of high frequencies normally used in DTT signal transmission, opening it up for use by the new 4G mobile phone communication system. This measure, established by the Directive on the Reorganisation of Frequencies for DDT Channels, has been christened the 'digital dividend', explained by the fact that the Spanish national government opened bidding among mobile phone operators for the usage rights of these frequencies, resulting in 'dividends'.

Although the Formentera Council hails the arrival of the new mobile phone data transfer system and the opportunity presented by improved data coverage on Formentera, it is concerned by the fact that the island's booster stations continue to lack the capability to transmit signal of the new channels. The obligation to provide these TDT channels is mandated by Royal Decree 365/2010 [26 March], which also regulates their assignment and defines the process to free up the 'digital dividend'. In fact, the Office of Information and Communication Technologies has received numerous resident complaints indicating that their televisions could not synchronise the lost channels.

Article 51 of Law 2/2011 [4 March] states that “the costs derived from the reorganisation of the radio-electric spectrum to free up frequencies from 790 to 862 MHz must be met by the local town council with liquidity obtained from public tender”.

For these reasons, the Formentera Council urges the Govern Balear to explain what measures will be adopted to ready the island's different booster stations for use and provide Formentera's residents once again with the lost television channels as established by RD 365/2010.