Mexico. The Radio Spectrum Unit of the Federal Institute of Telecommunications, IFT, reported the availability of television channels that could be made available to the market in the near future.
As timely reported, derived from the process of the Public Tender to assign frequencies to form two digital open television channels (Tender No. IFT-1) whose ruling was issued in March of this year, 123 transmission channels were available, corresponding to a chain with national coverage.
Likewise, the country is immersed in the process of transition to Digital Terrestrial Television, which will have to conclude, at the latest, on December 31 of this year, with which there will be greater availability of new channels due to the release of those that are currently used for analog transmissions.
Simultaneously, the IFT carries out a process of rearrangement of the 600 MHz band in which today more than 200 broadcast television channels operate, with the purpose of confining the operation of broadcast television to channels below 37, this is up to 608 MHz.
Given this, the IFT Plenary agreed that the coverage areas that will be available for digital broadcast television services, product of the process of reordering the 600 MHz band and the transition to digital terrestrial television, be included in the Annual Program for the Use and Exploitation of Frequency Bands 2016, this implies making available to the market, for commercial, social or public use, more than the 123 channels that were available in the IFT-1 Tender.
The new bidding process will begin in 2015, by submitting to public consultation the corresponding pre-bidding rules within the fourth quarter of the year and the bidding process for the allocation of channels for digital broadcast television services will be carried out during the first half of 2016.
In addition to the coverage areas of the DTT chain that was deserted in tender No. IFT-1, additional coverage areas, including the most populated urban areas of the country, will be sought in order to make at least two television channels available to the market in these populations.
