Colombia. Representatives of the entities involved in the implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television in Colombia, that is, the National Spectrum Agency -ANE-, the Communications Regulation Commission -CRC- and the National Television Authority -ANTV-, met at the offices of the Colombian Association of Engineers -ACIEM- in Bogotá, to reinforce their knowledge in the various technical and legal aspects involved in the total shutdown of the analog signal in Colombia and its soon replacement by the DVB-T2 DTT standard.
These Training and Technical Assistance activities constitute a first stage within the agreement made between Colombia and the European Union to contribute to migration, with the aim of taking advantage of the comparative advantages offered by this technology, providing quality television and promoting the use of the public network as an instrument that generates new opportunities to promote social and territorial cohesion, innovation and economic development of the country.
The realization and coordination of the activity was in charge of the expert Ángel García Castillejo, lawyer and doctor in Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid, consultant of the World Bank for projects related to the audiovisual sector and telecommunications and also for the Andean Community together with the Association of Telecommunications Operators of the Andean Community (ASETA).
Under his direction, the experts Joan Barata, lawyer and doctor of law from the University of Barcelona, as well as Nicolás Panichelli, lawyer from the John F. Kennedy University (Argentina), Carmiña Amaris, Colombian lawyer, professor specialized in regulation of the Telecommunications sector at the Externado de Colombia University, and Gonzalo Ávila, lawyer expert in regulation of the public sector, gave 40 hours of lectures on different contents.
The participants learned first-hand about the legal aspects of the digitization of the analog television signal, through the intervening agencies and their competences for DTT in Colombia, continuing with the rights of availability, use and commercialization, compliance with technical obligations, coverage and quality of the operators of the television service in the country and ending with a regulatory analysis on the regulations related to verification and spectrum control for DTT.
Likewise, they delved into the obligations of DTT licensees, their infractions and sanctions, the methods of valuation of the radio spectrum and the methods of quantifying fees for their use, as well as the shared management of multiplexes or multichannel, the fundamentals and objectives of the must carry / must offer, ending with the regulatory framework and the methods for the technical monitoring of emissions.
