Today the proposals delivered yesterday by Portugal Telecom and AirPlus for the Digital Terrestrial Television platforms were opened. With a few hours behind schedule, the opening of the proposals resulted in the acceptance of Portugal Telecom’s two applications (for the paid and free channels platform) and the acceptance of the AirPlus application, which is however suspended until the delivery of bank guarantees. required.
AirPlus is expected to deliver the bank guarantee by April 30, writes the Lusa agency, as requested by Anacom’s analysis committee, but the amount has not been revealed. Portugal Telecom’s two applications were accepted unconditionally.
Although without legally contesting the decision to accept AirPlus’ application in a conditional way, PT’s legal representative made a statement for the minutes stating that «PT does not complain because it does not intend, in a competition of this importance, to win at the secretariat. , which is not the proper behavior of a competitor to present himself in a competition without collateral since this allows him to have access to all the terms and conditions of the other competitor without financial risks «, quotes Jornal de Negócios.
AirPlus management has already explained that it is still negotiating an agreement with PT to access the TV signal distribution network, which is why it did not deliver a complete proposal yesterday. «We did not present the bank guarantee [na proposta hoje entregue] because we still don’t have an agreement with PT for access to the signal distribution network «, said today the executive president of Airplus Tv, Michael Warner, to Agência Lusa.
The same official defended that the AirPlus proposal has advantages over PT’s because it could start the transmission earlier, still in 2009. According to Michael Warner, the company offers even better prices and higher subsidies for the set top boxes, which exceed 20 million euros compared to the 4 million proposed by PT, Lusa adds
It should be recalled that AirPlus and Portugal Telecom were the only two companies to submit proposals for the Digital Terrestrial Television tender after several operators had given up because they considered the business model unfeasible. The Swedish company revealed yesterday that it intends to invest 80 million euros, but Portugal telecom reserved more details for a conference scheduled for this afternoon.
Editor’s Note: [16:47] The news was updated with more information about AirPlus’ proposal and the reasons for not delivering a bank guarantee.
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2008-04-23 – Portugal Telecom and AirPlus TV deliver applications for DTT
