Chile finds ARSAT support for HD DTT launch

Juan Fernandez Gonzalez
| 23 June 2016

Argentina and Chile have set their sights on a stronger collaboration in telecoms, with ARSAT playing a decisive role.

arsat antenaAmong other projects, ARSAT is looking at partnering with Chile’s national TV system, TVN, to provide technical support to develop the DTT network so it can provide HDTV across the country.

In a round of meetings held this week, Rodrigo de Loredo, ARSAT’s president, built up a bilateral cooperation plan focused on telecoms. In addition to the DTT project, De Loredo and Andrés Gómez and Pedro Huichalaf, Chile’s Minister and Deputy Minister of Telecoms, discussed how to connect both countries through their own growing fibre networks.

“This project would enable Chile to have an Internet-network back-up in case of natural disasters, especially frequent earthquakes,” said De Loredo.

As the Argentinean public company covers fibre, DTT and satellite businesses, the possibility was discussed to provide connectivity through satellite for nearly 1,000 rural schools which can’t access cable networks.

De Loredo also met with private operators in order to close commercial agreements for ARSAT-2’s satellite capacity, but no deal has been revealed so far.