With a request for indictment by the CPI of the Pandemic, businessman Marcos Tolentino, owner of TV Rede Brasil and friend of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), tries to obtain in court an unprecedented feat: the right to win, at no cost, a second digital channel of TV.
In practice, according to the understanding of Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) and the Ministry of Communications, the entrepreneur intends, through legal proceedings, to accumulate two digital channels from a single analogue concession.
A decade ago, when analogue TV was switched off, each broadcaster would receive a corresponding digital channel. In the assessment of government technicians, if successful, it would open space for other broadcasters to question the entire legal framework of the sector.
The Ministry of Communications and Anatel stated to the Court that the request is absurd and illegal. Even so, Tolentino insists on proceeding with the process.
In another case, Bolsonaro’s ally was benefited in the pandemic by a decree that allowed TV concessionaires to divide their frequencies into up to four blocks to broadcast their own programming by one of them and rent the others to third parties.
It was thanks to this that the Universal Church, owned by Bishop Edir Macedo, another friend of Bolsonaro, began to broadcast services and programming on the open TV network.
Regarding digital channels, at the end of last year, in the absence of Organs competent bodies, the entrepreneur’s broadcaster, whose official name is Sistema Pantanal de Comunicação, started to broadcast its programming from a second station of the group located on Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo. Paul.
The signals interfered with TIM’s network, damaging voice calls from more than 4.3 million customers and internet connections from more than 5.5 million in São Paulo, São Bernardo do Campo, Diadema, São Caetano do Sul, Guarulhos , Osasco and other municipalities in the metropolitan region.
The operator complained to Anatel, which sealed the transmitter of the station on Avenida Paulista and drew up a notice of infraction.
The Tolentino group took advantage of a duplicate registration in Anatel’s channel distribution system, known as Mosaico, to ensure that two digital channels could work in the same location and linked to the same analog TV concession.
The process was pending analysis, precisely because of the technical and legal impossibility that this situation could occur.
AT leaf Tolentino stated that the sealed channel was primary and, therefore, could not cause interference, which is why he appealed to Justice. According to him, there was a mistake. When consulted, the Ministry of Communications and Anatel said that they only comment on the case in the case file.
A 2010 decree, which defined criteria for migration from analogue to digital TV, determined that “every grant [de concessão analógica] would be contemplated with the consignment of a digital channel”.
In court, Anatel stated that the Pantanal Communication System —the official name of Rede Brasil—, operated at the time of digitization on channel 50, using analog technology.
“In view of this, a radio frequency channel with a bandwidth of 6 MHz was assigned to the entity [megahertz]. (…) The entity obtained the assignment of digital channel 56 as a pair of its primary analog channel 50”, the agency replied in the process.
However, Anatel explained that “the channel 56 of the town of Barueri would be consigned [na Grande São Paulo], with the geographic coordinates of the channel in São Paulo [capital]”.
Digital channel 56 was then paired with the concession of the Tolentino group. However, by mistake, according to Anatel, it was registered as a secondary channel in São Paulo.
A secondary channel operates in a precarious way and without the right to have its signals protected, but with the duty to avoid interference in those who operate on a primary basis (with protection).
This situation lasted until cellular telephony began to operate in the 700 MHz band, the main band for 3G and 4G. Before the implementation of the service, Rede Brasil started to operate permanently on channel 32 (digital).
At the end of last year, however, the station broadcast signals from São Paulo on the 700 MHz frequency, knocking down phone calls and making internet connections difficult throughout the metropolitan region.
Frequency is an avenue in the air through which companies carry their signals. When one company occupies the other’s lane, interference occurs.
The 700 MHz band can no longer be exploited by broadcasters because it was auctioned off to telephone operators, who paid more than R$10 billion for the right to use the band and costs associated with moving TV signals to another band.
Anatel inspectors then sealed the transmitter of the Tolentino station and opened a sanctioning process that is still ongoing at the agency.
During the year-end recess, Rede Brasil went to court against Anatel’s measure and obtained a favorable injunction until the Ministry of Communications manifested itself, which happened so quickly that there was no time for Anatel’s inspectors to comply the preliminary decision to unseal the station from the broadcaster.
On appeal, Tolentino criticized the court for the efficiency of the government, which, “in less than 24 hours”, took decisions that had been pending for years.
“Oddly, cases that were pending decision since 2019 were decided and denied, in a record time of 24 (twenty four) hours, causing strangeness the short time taken by the Ministry of Communications to: analyze them; issue a Technical Note; sign; and publish the order. All, again, in an impressive 24 (twenty-four) hours, counting from the decision in which this Court established a deadline for Anatel to clarify the reason why it had not yet complied with the decision to unseal Channel 56D” , writes the company’s defense to Justice.
In the lawsuit, the Ministry of Communications claims, and demonstrates, that the group —which now requests pairing with channel 13D— has already obtained pairing with channel 32.
Bolsonaro’s friend, Tolentino was targeted by the Pandemia CPI on suspicion of being a hidden partner of FIB Bank Garantias, a company used by Precise Medicamentos as an intermediary to offer a letter of guarantee to Saúde in a suspicious negotiation for the purchase of the Covaxin vaccine.
The commission recommended indictment on charges of formation of a criminal organization and administrative improbity.
Regarding the ongoing process, Tolentino says that there was an affront to a court decision. “There is a big mistake by the public administration to keep the seal of the 56D channel legally granted, based on an error in the registration [do canal no sistema Mosaico], in direct affront to a court decision that, until now, has been solemnly ignored”, said the businessman.
“Finally, in the event of interference between the services, and considering the condition of the primary nature of the channel protected against interference, it would be up to Anatel to remedy the interference raised by changing the channel to another [frequência].”
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