35% of Spanish Homes could lose Digital TV by Xmas

The National Federation of Telecommunications, FECOTEL, has publicly reported that there aren´t enough stored components to replace and carry out the reset of all DTT aerials in at least 35% of the 1 million affected buildings.

The main reasons for this is the excessive delay in the start of the DTT migration and the short period of time to implement it, from October to December.

"There isn't sufficient material. Manufacturers haven't got the capacity to put the necessary parts in the market so quickly. They need at least 3 months to provide (the installers) with the material, so if we requested it now we would not have the replacement parts until February or March next year", explains José Manuel Muñiz, spokesman for FECOTEL.

The Federation points out that there is a lot of confusion amongst people about the digital dividend. "People do not know what it is about and what it means and do not know what to do", said Jose Manuel Muñiz who urged the Administration to create a Committe to oversee the process and even to extend the migration deadline.

According to FECOTEL, only 10% of all DTT installations have been already adapted. Moreover,  the Federation claims that many false installers are doing the job to earn money cheating consumers who will not be able to get the funds back as they are not official installers.

With the DTT migration under way, around 1 million buildings in Spain, with 13 million homes representing 26 million Spaniards, will have to get their DTT aerials reset with a cost of €150 and €550 per building depending on the multiplexes with the Government paying them back from January up to a total of €286 million.

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