Regulation for Digital TV Unconstitutional
Friday, 24 February, 2012 | 17:22 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:House of Representatives’ (DPR) Commission I member, Tantowi Yahya, has urged the Communication and Information Ministry’s 2011 Regulation on the Organization of Terrestrial Digital Television be annulled. “The regulation breaches the existing mechanism and is unconstitutional,” he said yesterday.

The law may conflict with the core Broadcasting Law that is currently being revised, he said.

Additionally, the government could hold a telecommunications infrastructure procurement tender based on the regulation. “That’s absurd,” he said.

Previously, the Communication and Information Ministry ratified the ministerial regulation that requires analog to switch to digital broadcast. The switch will be completed by 2018. However Tantowi said that legal problems would impede the implentation process.

The Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) was previously concerned that the Communication and Information Ministry’s 2011 Regulation on the Organization of Non-Paying Permanent Broadcasting of Terrestrial Digital TV would lead to monopoly practices because the law only allows infrastructure organizers to be institutions that have broadcasting permits.

RAFIKA