More than 11 million Spaniards, residing in 2,413 municipalities of the country, will be affected, from this Tuesday until March 3, by the first shutdown of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) frequencies, which should be free for the networks of Fifth Generation telecommunications (5G).

Before June 30, the band of 700 megahertz (Mhz) where TV channels are currently broadcasting should be free, so that it can be used for 5G, according to the Deputy Director General of Spectrum Planning and Management Radioelectric, Antonio Fernández-Paniagua.

Once this band is released, the frequencies will be auctioned among the telephone operators in a process , the date of which "is yet to be decided", although there will be enough time to comply with what is established by the EU, according to Fernández-Paniagua.

To make this change of frequencies, for a while, from last July until now, television channels have begun to broadcast new frequencies, simultaneously with the old ones, depending on the geographical areas of the country, in order to make it easier for citizens to adapt their signal receivers.

Antennas

Thus, the country was divided into 75 geographical areas, in 29 of which the new television frequencies began to be broadcast between last July and September. As of this Tuesday, and until March 3, television channels will allow broadcasting on the old frequencies in these areas, where there are 2,413 municipalities.

This will mean that buildings that have not adapted their antennas ; or individual homes that have not re-tuned their channels with the remote control, will stop watching a channel.

"It is not that they cannot watch television", but that they will have problems when watching a chain, said Fernández-Paniagua, who added that, once the signal receivers have been adapted, the channels that will be watched will be the same .

For this, the community homes have to adapt their collective antennas and, in the case of single-family homes, they should only re-tune the television with the remote control.

Those affected by this first blackout are distributed in 32 provinces of 11 autonomous communities (Andalusia, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla-León, Valencian Community, Extremadura, Galicia, Balearic Islands, La Rioja, Navarra and the Basque Country).

The digital dividend process has been carried out in different phases, the second being the one that began on November 14, when the frequencies in the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Catalonia and Madrid were turned on, and some municipalities in Aragón, Castellón, Castilla- La Mancha and Castilla y León.

Within this second phase, on January 20 the broadcast began in the areas of Ciudad Real and Pontevedra. In these places there will still be no frequency shutdown.

Phases by zones

In addition, on February 17, the fires will begin in Cádiz Este, Cádiz Oeste, Jaén, Sevilla, Cuenca, Ávila, Burgos Norte, Burgos Sur, León east, Palencia, Salamanca, Zamora, Ceuta, Alicante, Castellón, Valencia, Badajoz Oeste, Extremadura Centro, Ourense, Rioja Oeste, Murcia Sur and Navarra.

With these new ignitions, all the new planned frequency emissions will be underway, "keeping the old ones for a while so that the televisions can adapt."

It is expected that 21 million people, residing in 850,000 community buildings, will be affected in total in Spain by this change.

The Council of Ministers approved on June 21 a game of 145 million euros to offset the costs of adapting the facilities and aid for television channels has also been planned.

Of these 75 areas, eight will not be affected the collective antennas of the buildings, Asturias, Barcelona, ​​La Coruña, Menorca, Melilla and a part of the provinces of Toledo and Murcia. However, in these eight zones, they must re-tune their televisions before June 2020.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Castellón
  • Estremadura
  • Burgos
  • Aragon
  • Murcia
  • Navarre
  • Pontevedra
  • Basque Country
  • Palencia
  • Ourense
  • Melilla
  • Madrid
  • Ávila
  • Zamora
  • Valencia
  • Toledo
  • Seville
  • Salamanca
  • Jaen
  • Castile and Leon
  • Cantabria
  • Canary Islands
  • Castilla la Mancha
  • Barcelona
  • Badajoz
  • Asturias
  • Andalusia
  • Alicante
  • Lion
  • The Rioja
  • La Coruña
  • Galicia
  • Spain
  • Cádiz
  • Basin
  • Valencian Community
  • Real city
  • Ceuta
  • Catalonia

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