The old bonus half a flop, now a new information campaign
The poor information and awareness campaign of users explains the poor success, so far, of the old TV-decoder bonus that was introduced with the 2019 budget law. From 18 December 2019 to 16 August 2021 bonuses for just 30 were paid out. 2 million out of the 151 million available: 607,825 total contributions of which 480,972 for televisions and 126,853 for decoders. To give a boost to the transition, Mise has now launched a new communication campaign, has activated a dedicated website and a call center (06 87.800.262).
TV change necessary only for older models
On the Mise web page there is a list of eligible products already prepared on the occasion of the launch of the old bonus. The included TVs however do not exhaust the full range of models with the right features. If your TV does not appear it may still be a new generation model. If the TV was purchased starting from January 2017, according to the Faq of the Mise, it will be compatible with the change introduced by the first technological step, i.e. the discontinuation of the MPEG-2 encoding in favor of MPEG-4 on the DVB-T1 standard: in essentially we need televisions for high definition (HD). And if the TV was purchased starting from December 22, 2018, it will be compatible with the new DVB-T2 standard and its HEVC Main10 encoding. In any case, once the re-tuning of the channels has been carried out, a check can be carried out by trying to view the test channels 100 and 200: if you see Rai1 on channel 1 you must check that a message appears on channel 100 containing the words “Test HEVC Main10 “; same thing on channel 200 if you see Channel5 on channel 5.
How the discount is applied: the seller recovers with a tax credit
The seller must access the telematic service made available by the Revenue Agency, available in the reserved area of the website (therefore through Spid, Entratel / Fisconline, Cie or Cns credentials), to transmit an electronic communication to the Mise with the data of the user, TV and price. For each communication, the Agency carries out checks and checks the availability of resources. Verification is carried out in chronological order of receipt of applications until the limit is exhausted: the electronic service notifies the seller of the availability of the discount or the impossibility of applying it. The seller who applies the discount then recovers the amount as a tax credit. The Inland Revenues let it be known that the platform should be operational in the early afternoon of Monday, after the last tests that will be carried out in the morning by Sogei, the Agency’s technological partner.
Why we change: everything comes from the passage of frequencies to 5G
According to a European obligation, TV operators must hand over the 700 MHz band to 5G mobile phone operators (known as refarming). The transition to DVB-T2 is necessary as it will have to allow TV broadcasters to continue transmitting the same amount of channels, possibly increasing their resolution and quality.
Postponement of the Mise: the last passage from January 2023
The Mise, after a confrontation with the broadcasters, decided to postpone it due to the delay with which the televisions are being replaced. The transition from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4 coding will no longer take place on September 1st but gradually from October 15th starting from some national programs. The generalized disposal of MPEG2 will be defined with a provision to be issued by the end of 2021. Instead, the second and definitive transition, to the DVB-T2 standard with HEVC Main10 encoding, will no longer take place on 30 June 2022 but starting from 1 January 2023 , with the possibility and not obligation for broadcasters to leave even earlier.