Emitted licence to PTDP for the establishment and operation of a digital terrestrial television platform

By ministerial order of the Minister of Social Equipment dated August 17th 2001 proffered under the terms of nº 2 of article 18 of the Public Tender Regulations for the award of a national licence for the establishment and exploration of a Digital Terrestrial Television Platform, approved in appendix to Administrative Rule nº 346-A/2001 dated April 6th, a licence was awarded to PDTP - Plataforma de Televisão Digital Portuguesa, S.A..

Thus, under the conjugated terms of article 3, paragraph c) of nº 2 of article 4 and article 14 of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, amended by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd, and under the terms of nº 1 of article 20 of the Public Tender Regulations approved in appendix to Administrative Rule nº 346-A/2001 dated April 6th, the Board of Directors of the Instituto das Comunicações de Portugal (ICP) decided at a meeting held on the 9th of October, under the conjugated terms of paragraph j) of nº 1 and of nº 2 of article 7 of Decree Law nº 283/89 dated August 23rd, to issue the respective licence and delegated the Chairman to authorise the same in the name of the ICP.

Therefore, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ICP, Dr. Luís Filipe Nunes Coimbra Nazaré, issues the corresponding licence under the following terms:

1º 1. PTDP - Plataforma de Televisão Digital Portuguesa, S.A., hereafter designated in the abbreviated form as PTDP, entity registered within the ICP under the terms of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, amended by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd, under nº ICP-014/2001, to exercise the activity of telecommunications for public use, is hereby licensed to establish and explore a Digital Terrestrial Television Platform in national territory in accordance with the norms and recommendations that define the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting for Terrestrial Television) technological system.

2. The use of the frequencies required for the exploration of the Digital Terrestrial Television Platform shall obey the regime of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, amended by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd and Decree Law nº 151-A/2000 dated July 20th.

2º 1. The present licence is governed by that laid down in Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 31st, amended by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd in the regulations for the exploration of Public Telecommunications Networks, approved in appendix to Decree Law nº 290-A/99 dated July 30th in the Public Tenders Regulations, approved by Administrative Rule nº 346-A/2001 dated April 6th by the conditions laid down in the Specifications approved by ministerial order of the Minister of Social Equipment dated April 7th and all other legislation applicable to the communications sector.

2. All obligations arising from the terms of the tender and the bid proposal presented by PTDP, which was a determining factor in the awarding of the present licence, constitute, for all purposes and under the terms of nº 1 of article 25 of the Public Tenders Regulations, approved by Administrative Rule nº 346-A/2001 dated April 6th, an integral part of the present licence.

3. The award of the present licence does not give PTDP any rights other than those resulting from the exact terms contained in the present licence authorisation, whilst all other facts arising from the award of new services, licences or circumstantial modifications may not be invoked in any shape or form.

3º 1. The commercial exploration of the Digital Terrestrial Television Platform must commence before 31st of August 2002 except for reasons of unavoidable circumstances, duly justified and recognised as such by the ICP.

2. For the purposes o the present licence, that designated as 'year 1' shall correspond to the first 12-month period after the date of issue or the starting date of the activity, should this be later.

3. PTDP must inform the ICP of the effective date of initiation of the licensed activity.

4º 1. PTDP is hereby authorised to install a digital terrestrial television platform in accordance with the technical plan presented, namely the broadcasting stations necessary to guarantee compliance with the coverage obligations foreseen in Clause 7 and the corresponding values for the quality of service and network performance parameters.

2. In accordance with the technical plan presented, PTDP is hereby obliged to:

a) Use the 64-QAM modulation system with a ¿ code rate in the network broadcasting platform, except where duly justified for technical reasons;

b) Use the DVB-MHP technology platform as specified in TS 101 812 of the ETSI in the development and exploration of interactive services or others that result from norms or legislation that may come to be approved later;

c) Maintain a potency transmitted log (rms) and a log of errors measured at the exit of each network transmitter, taken at intervals of one second. These logs must be kept for a minimum period of two months.

3. The installation of those infrastructures referred to in number 1 must obey that laid down in Decree Law nº 151-A/2000 dated July 20th and all other legislation applicable.

4. PTDP shall be obliged to guarantee that the stations that make up the network observe the limits contained in Recommendation 1999/519/EC of the Council dated July 12th 1999 relative to the limitation of the exposure of the population to electro-magnetic fields or others that may result from norms or legislation that may come to be approved later.

5º PTDP must adopt all measures necessary to minimise the impact of the infrastructures to be implemented on the environment, taking special care over the visual impact of exterior installations, namely:

a) The painting of antennae and structures with colours compatible with the surrounding area;

b) Through the choice of formats and sizes of towers so that they integrate as much as possible with the local surroundings;

c) Through integration of already existing infrastructures.

6º PTDP shall be obliged to guarantee the values of the quality of service and network performance parameters contained in the technical plan presented in the tender, namely the degree of availability of the services, understood as a percentage of time, measured monthly, where the services should be available 99.99% of the time to 99.5% of the population covered.

7º In accordance with the tender presented and without prejudice to other aspects contained in it relative to coverage, in terms of the development of the activity which is the subject of the present licence, PTDP shall be especially obliged to guarantee coverage of national territory for each of the four multiplexers, respecting, in the minimum, the evolution described below:

a) Portuguese Mainland:

	By the end of Year 1	By the end of Year 2	By the end of Year 3
Surface	60%	90%	95%
Population	86%	95.5%	99.2%

b) Autonomous Region of the Azores:

	By the end of Year 1	By the end of Year 2	By the end of Year 3
Surface	79.7%	90.5%	96.7%
Population	87%	96%	99.8%

c) Autonomous Region of Madeira:

	By the end of Year 1	By the end of Year 2	By the end of Year 3
Surface	73.6%	90.2%	95.7%
Population	83%	95%	99.8%

8º In developing this activity, PTDP must make the services contained in its bid proposal available.

9º PTDP must implement a prices and packages policy in accordance with the underlying principles of the bid proposal presented.

10º 1. PTDP must make a set of special conditions available for low-income population and citizens with special needs under the terms and amounts contained in its bid proposal.

2. The offer alluded to in the previous number may be made available by PTDP or via third parties constituted for this purpose. In this case PTDP shall directly and personally continue to be subject to the obligations arising from the tender presented.

11º 1. PTDP shall be obliged to reserve capacity for codifying, multiplexing, transportation and diffusion of:

a) The public television service for which the concession is granted, covering the 1st and 2nd channel transmissions and those of RTP-Azores and RTP-Madeira in the respective Autonomous Regions;

b) The television channels licensed till the date that Law nº 31-A/98 dated July 14th (Television Law) came into force;

c) Three television channels to be attributed under the terms of applicable legislation.

2. The sum total capacity to be reserved referred to in paragraphs a) and b) of number 1 must be available in a non-discriminatory form and must be at all times and at least:
a) Portuguese Mainland: 16.8 Mbit/s;

b) Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira: 21.0 Mbit/s.
3. The capacity to be reserved for audio and data transmission must be 384 kbit/s and 200 kbit/s respectively for each service. These figures may be reduced in favour of the capacity to be reserved for the video signal by agreement between PTDP and the television operator.

4. The capacity values indicated may be altered in accordance with the evolution of codifying/compressions norms.

5. The reserve capacity referred to in paragraphs c) of number 1 must be governed by criteria of reasonability and proportionality.

12º 1. The following shall constitute obligations of PTDP in terms of the transportation and diffusion of the television signal:

a) For the purposes of paragraph a) of the previous clause, the integral and simultaneous transmission of the television channels available on the analogous network;

b) For the purposes of paragraph b) of the previous clause, the integral and simultaneous transmission of the television channels available on the analogous network in the case of licensed television operators exercising the right conferred upon them under the terms of nº 2 and nº 4 of article 1 of Decree Law nº 237/97 dated August 5th;

c) The gratuitous codifying, multiplexing, transportation and diffusion of the television channels referred to in paragraphs a) and b) above until the closing down of the analogous television transmissions, as long as the respective signals are available to the television operators free of charge through the digital diffusion centre, under the terms of laid down in the Specifications approved by ministerial order of the Minster of Social Equipment dated April 7th 2001.

2. At the end of the period referred to in paragraph c) of the previous number, PTDP must guarantee the television operators access to the network under the terms foreseen in the following clause.

3. The transmissions referred to in paragraph c) of the previous number must be made openly available by PTDP, and completely free of charge to users.

13º 1. For the purposes of paragraph c) of nº 1 of clause 11, the television operators shall have right of access in equal conditions to the digital terrestrial television platform, with PTDP being obliged to guarantee access to the network, upon receipt of adequate remuneration, under the terms of the legislation applicable, namely in Chapter III of the Regulations for the Exploration of Public Telecommunications Networks approved by Decree law nº 290-A/99 dated July 30th.

2. PTDP shall jointly guarantee with the television operators the coverage requirements foreseen by Decree Law nº 237/98 dated August 5th.

3. Should PTDP begin to exercise the activity of television operator simultaneously, it must use separate accounting systems for the different activities in question.

14º Within the bounds of the operation of conditioned access technical services, PTDP shall be obliged to:

a) Offer all providers of services supported by the digital terrestrial television platform, through just, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions, those technical services that permit the services transmitted digitally to be captured by duly authorised users by means of decodifiers managed by the licensed entity;

b) Maintain a separate accounting system for the activity of conditioned access provider.

15º 1. In exercising the licensed activity, PTDP shall further be subject, amongst other related to current applicable legislation, to the following obligations:

a) Take all adequate measures to guarantee the safe working order and integrity of the network, and have specialised technical personnel available in order to ensure and maintain the minimum functionality of the network when factors occur that could affect the same;

b) Use effectively and efficiently those frequencies that become assigned, in accordance with the technical parameters defined by the ICP in the network licence to be issued under the terms of Decree Law nº 151-A/2000 dated July 20th;

c) Observe the territorial classification plans and respect the conditioners inherent to environmental protection, patrimony and access to the public and private dominion, as well as the licensing acts foreseen by law in terms of local authority responsibilities.

2. PTDP shall further be subject to all norms that may be published in the future, even though they may describe conditions not foreseen at the date of awarding the licence, but rather that result from the needs or requirements of the public use of the service provided.

16º PTDP shall be obliged to submit the following to the ICP:
a) Notification, within 30 days from the date of verification, of any changes that are introduced in the respective statutes;

b) Submit contracts of adhesion to be celebrated with users for prior approval, and which is preceded by a Consumer Institute report;

c) Submit, up to date information about the services and facilities implemented and prices practised by the 20th of the month following the end of each quarter;

d) Supply the following information by the 20th of the month following the end of each year that the licence is valid:

i) Total population covered, expressing the population covered in thousands of inhabitants proportionate to the national total, using the National Statistics Institute 1991 Census figures as a reference (or other more up to date census figures that may be published by the said institute);

ii) Total area covered, expressing the area covered in km2 proportionate to the total national territory;

iii) Availability of the service on the Portuguese Mainland and in the Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira separated by multiplexer;

iv) Average repair time for the main systems and sub-systems used by the digital terrestrial television platform, especially those related to the digital diffusion centre and the broadcasting network;

v) Method of implementation of the site sharing policy adopted in its bid proposal, including the actual number of sites shared, the identity of the locations and the entities involved;

vi) Elements that allow the efficient verification of compliance of the quality of service and network performance parameters referred to in clause 6, describing, for this purpose, the methods used to supervise and control the quality of service, measurements taken and how often, and the method used to make the results obtained available.

e) Make all information available, in the form and within the time limit fixed for this purpose, that is seen to be necessary to the verification and supervision of the obligations and conditions contained in the licence that refer to the accompaniment of the licensed activity, along with that destined for statistical purposes;
f) Authorise verification of equipment and access to the respective installations and documentation;

g) Carry out all necessary corrections with a view to the regular working order of the installations and adequate functionality of the activity;

h) Comply with those decisions, which under the terms of the law and the present licence are superintended by the ICP, within the fixed period of time, except in cases that result in a special law.

17º For the purposes of the present licence, PTDP may only change the composition and ownership of the respective share capital through the authorisation of the member of the Government responsible for the area of communications, preceded by an ICP report.

18º 1. The bond provided by PTDP to the value of 5,000,000.00 Euros or PTE 1,002,410,000 shall be valid for a period of five years from the date is furnished.

2. The bond referred to in the previous number shall be progressively liberated until it reaches one third of its value with the verification of compliance with the obligations related to coverage contained in the specifications documentation approved by ministerial order of the Minister of Social Equipment dated April 7th 2001.

19º 1. PTDP shall be obliged to pay the ICP an annual fee, the amount of which will be fixed by ministerial order under the terms and conditions of nº 3 of article 29 of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, as changed by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd.

2. Besides the fee referred to in the previous number, PTDP shall also pay the ICP all other legally applicable fees, namely those related to the use of the radio-electric spectrum.

3. The fees alluded to in the previous numbers shall only be payable from the date the activity is started.

20º The regime foreseen in article 19 of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, as changed by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd, shall be applicable to the transmission of the present licence.

21º Without prejudice to that laid down in article 32 of Decree Law nº 381-A/97 dated December 30th, as changed by Decree Law nº 92/99 dated March 23rd, the non-compliance of PTDP with the terms of the present licence constitutes reason for the suspension or revocation of the same.

22º The present licence is valid for a period of 15 years from the date of attribution, with the date of expiry being the 17th of August 2016.

Lisbon, October 9th 2001

Chairman of the Board of Directors

(Dr. Luís Filipe Nunes Coimbra Nazaré)