Chile. Currently the Chilean government has 17 demonstration and experimental signals of free and open Digital TV available in Santiago and some regions of the country, which had operating permission until last October six.
Therefore, the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications, Subtel, of this country has renewed these permits in accordance with the ruling of the Constitutional Court that ratified this power of the public body to manage the radio spectrum and deliver experimental permits for annual periods, after a favorable concept of the Comptroller's Office.
If this decision had not been taken, there would have been a blackout of the digital television that is currently transmitted, which according to data provided by Jorge Atton, Undersecretary of Telecommunications, today reaches 20% of Chilean households and 1.8 million televisions have been sold with the integrated Digital TV standard.
Additionally, the Undersecretariat reported the suspension, voluntarily and temporarily, of the delivery of new demonstration permits for Digital TV in the regions. This decision applies while the pronouncement of the Comptroller's Office on the request that seeks to annul the second call of Subtel for applications for new Digital TV permits in regions arrives.
On the subject, Jorge Atton said that "there is no legal reason to discriminate against the regions, depriving them of the right to experiment with demonstrative signals of Digital TV as some political actors are asking for. We never heard voices against permits when they were delivered for Channels in Santiago, but now that we are doing the same with channels in regions, criticism jumps. We think it's a bit of a centralist attitude."
