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SA needs new digital TV strategy

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Johannesburg, 12 Jul 2016

Lack of funds, ongoing legal wrangles, slow registration uptake and uncertainty over the technical specifications of set-top boxes (STBs) are only some of the reasons SA's digital migration project has "failed".

This is according to Marian Shinn, Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow telecommunications and postal services minister.

In 2006, SA along with other countries committed to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting. However, the country missed the June 2015 deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union. Although SA's digital migration process has since begun, it is running behind schedule.

In a statement, Shinn says government's broadcast digital migration process has failed and must be stopped and reappraised to determine a new path.

"The major stumbling block in digital migration is minister of communications Faith Muthambi. She must be removed from office if any progress - free from legally expensive decisions to promote dubious agendas - is to be made."

According to Shinn, the funding and capability to do the job as initially envisaged are just not there. "National Treasury has approved only R2.39 billion of the R4.3 billion needed to pay for the decoders and their antennas or aerials. This budget has not been adjusted since 2014."

She adds: "There is no money in the current medium-term economic framework for the dual-illumination phase that is critical to the successful transition from analogue to digital broadcasting."

Ovum senior analyst Richard Hurst says: "The government should approach the digital migration with the notion that time is of the essence. The revision should be simple, straight forward and have the least red tape and delays attached to it."

Hurtful delays

The ongoing legal battle between Muthambi and Etv has meant further delays for the country's digital migration process.

Etv approached the courts to challenge Muthambi's controversial Broadcasting Digital Migration amendment policy that saw a change to unencrypted STBs.

SA is one the few countries to miss the International Telecommunication Union's June 2015 deadline to migrate to digital terrestrial television.
SA is one the few countries to miss the International Telecommunication Union's June 2015 deadline to migrate to digital terrestrial television.

The free-to-air broadcaster wants encrypted STBs to be used for digital migration, a move that has been questioned and labelled as a future "business plan" for the broadcaster, which is speculated to want to move away from its free-to-air model.

While the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Etv, last month the Department of Communications lodged papers with the Constitutional Court to have the judgement overturned.

It was also reported that pay-TV operator M-Net, a subsidiary of MultiChoice, lodged its own appeal papers with the highest court in the land.

Denis Smit, MD of BMI-TechKnowledge, says at this stage government must urge the courts to speedily resolve the legal dispute and bring finality. "The problem is now only possibly resolved in the courts. The issues are too intractable for any other recourse."

Meanwhile, the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (USAASA) has instructed manufacturers to suspend the production of DTT decoders until further notice.

USAASA, the agency charged with the responsibility of managing the production and installation of STBs, has contracted manufacturers to produce both DTT and direct to the home decoders.

Biggest loser

Earlier this year, the GSM Association urged the South African government to speed up spectrum allocation.

Mobile operators have been calling for additional spectrum for years, but there has been little movement towards auctioning the spectrum. The allocation of spectrum will allow the deployment of 4G/LTE infrastructure and unlock SA's mobile broadband market.

As a result of the fact that in-demand spectrum is currently occupied by analogue TV, the switch to DTT has been identified as the process that will deliver ubiquitous wireless broadband.

According to analysts, government's digital migration process must be accelerated because the longer it takes, the more it delays the mass deployment of better mobile broadband services.

Hurst says: "The delays have had a major negative impact on the mobile network operators and their plans to roll out and further develop their mobile broadband products and services. The additional spectrum from the so-called digital dividend will enable the operators to scale up services, add more subscribers and lower the costs of data."

Smit says sadly the impact of the delay in the digital migration process is mostly felt by the citizens of the country as it falls even further behind global rankings.

He explains: "SA uses VHF and UHF bands for television broadcast using the PAL standard. The channel numbers range from channel 4 (175.25MHz) to channel 68 (847.25MHz). Channel 69 was used in the past but no longer seems to be in service. Channels 50 through 62 are in the 700MHz band while channels 63 to 68 are in the 800MHz. These are the bands that need to be cleared for DTT.

"The only alternative to DTT would be to reassign the TC transmitters that are in the bands and clear the spectrum. This is a tremendous undertaking and is essentially what is being done with the digital migration. Digital TV uses less and lower spectrum," Smit concludes.

Click here to read Shinn's full statement.

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