The Romanian regulator ANCOM has said it will propose legislative amendments ahead of a new DTT tender due to take place in the second half of the year.
This follows the results of a public consultation on the spectrum available in the VHF band (174-230 MHz) aimed at transforming a VHF digital TV multiplex into four T-DAB+ national multiplexes.
According to the regulator, the move will allow for more resources for DTT broadcasting, thus creating more channels, both national and regional/local, as well as a multiplex dedicated solely to public service broadcasting.
Another option that will be considered in the auction is the division into four T-DAB+ national multiplexes in the 174-216 MHz band and 47 multiplexes in the 216-230 MHz band. This would allow for the distribution of a large number of channels of different genres.
Regarding the UHF band (470-694 MHz), the consultation was in favour of sharing the spectrum resources in a national multiplex and 36 regional ones (MUX 3) as a balanced solution.
Respondents also believed it was preferable to impose both geographical coverage obligations and demographic coverage for the national public service multiplex and the installation of a number of transmitters for the other T-DAB + multiplexes and DVB-T2 multiplexes.
Looking at content, it was felt that the operators of DVB-T2 multiplexes should be allowed to carry the same channels as other multiplexes.
This would require legislative amendments and essentially allow the operators to compile the same channel line-ups as the operators of cable and DTH platforms.
