3. Prior hearing and consultation procedures carried out

By determination of 22 September 2016, ANACOM approved a draft decision on the amendment of the rights of use for DTT frequencies (MUX A)¹ (DD), having decided to submit the referred DD to the prior hearing of MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia S.A. (MEO), Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A (RTP), SIC – Sociedade Independente de Comunicações, S.A (SIC), TVI – Televisão Independente, S.A (TVI) and ARTV - Canal Parlamento (ARTV-Canal Parlamento), under articles 121 et seq. of the Administrative Procedure Code (APC), interested parties having been given a period of twenty working days from the date of notification of the DD to submit their comments in writing. The DD was submitted also to the general consultation procedure, so that interested parties could provide their comments in writing, under article 8 of the Electronic Communications Law (ECL), by reference set out in article 20, paragraph 3, of that same law, for the same period of time, however in the case, from the date on which the DD was made available at ANACOM’s website on the internet.

Having been notified for the purpose, MEO, RTP, SIC, TVI and ARTV-Canal Parlamento submitted their comments in due time, by letter and email received at ANACOM on 21.20.2016, except for ARTV-Canal Parlamento, which only submitted its comment via email.

The following contributions were also received within the time limit set for reception of comments (that is, by 21.10.2016):

• Associação Portuguesa para a Defesa do Consumidor (DECO - the Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection);
• the blog “TDT em Portugal” (DTT in Portugal); and
• Nelson Teixeira;

A report of these consultation procedures was drawn up, deemed to be an integral part of this decision, and includes a summary of arguments presented by interested parties in their comments to the draft decision, of positions taken by respondents as regards the DD, as well as of ANACOM’s views thereon.