Chile wants operators to invest in the acceleration of DTT implementation

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*Chile wants operators to invest in the acceleration of DTT implementation The Chilean Sub Secretary of Telecommunications, Jorge Atton, assured that TV channels must take advantage of the dollar and equipment low costs to invest in digital TV with the purpose of implement it in the whole country in the possible shortest time. In this sense, he urged operators "not to lose time". According to what the official explained to Terra.cl site, the idea is to accelerate the terms set in the Bill, currently in Congress, which considers five years to reach the 85% of coverage and eight years to reach the 100%. It has not been defined whether investments for the deployment of the broadcasting network in the country will be made only by private channels or the State will also participate. Accordingly, Atton stated ironically: "if the State does, we will keep all advertising tickets". "The truth is that such terms (to implement digital TV in the country) were set two years ago; therefore, our public speech and especially for people in the regions, is focused on a fast reduction of terms without losing time. Equipment are coming down, the dollar is cheap, so TV channels must take advantage of such situation to invest now", he emphasized. According to the executive director of the state-owned channels Televisión Nacinoal (TVN), Mauro Valdés, the industry will need to invest about USD 60 millions to implement DTT. However, Atton admitted that such amount surprised him. "I was surprised, I have heard about some others, between USD 200 or USD 300 millions". "The truth is that I am not aware of details reagrding the business amounts. Each company has its own model, its own economy, but if you think that it is necessary to deploy a network, you need to change 300 or 400 transmitters all across Chile. It is not that easy to reelase an amount to change everything involved in such infraestructure", he pointed out. As for advertising incomes, Atton stated that at present such moneis surpass USD 400 millions annually, so with DTT "will increase such figure dramatically", thus enabling companies to finance a new business model. Chile adopted the Japanese standard ISDB-T for its DTT development. *