Digital Dividend sale to go ahead

The Australian parliament has agreed to the sale of the “Digital Dividend”, those frequencies made available by the switch to digital terrestrial TV (DTT). According to the “Australian” the sale is expected to raise A$2.5 billion (€1.87 billion).
The price paid for the hotly contested spectrum, which mobile phone and other telecommunications services want, will boost government coffers in 2012-13, when it has promised to return its budget to surplus.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority will conduct an auction of the spectrum in November 2012.
Commercial free-to-air TV networks, as well as the ABC and SBS, will be required to self fund changing the frequencies at more than 1,000 transmitters across the nation
Source: Asian-Pacific Broadcasting Union Weekly
Item added: 14th November 2011