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Digital TV misstep could cost SA

Candice Jones
By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor
Johannesburg, 03 May 2010

The Department of Communications (DOC) has opened a new can of worms, by entertaining the possible implementation of a different digital TV standard, which could set back digital TV migration by up to five years.

The department called a standards symposium last week to compare the benefits of a European standard (DVB) and a Japanese standard (ISDB), and make a decision about which SA should be using for the digital migration.

SA adopted the DVB standard in 2005, when the South African Standards Bureau approved it as the local digital broadcasting option, and all digital migration trials since 2007 have been conducted on this standard.

E.tv's GM for group communications, Vasili Vass, says: “We attended the DOC's standards symposium held last week, and remain very concerned that at this late stage government appears to be driving a process to change the adopted national standards for digital television.”

Cutting off

The tone of last week's symposium was hostile towards anyone defending the current DVB standard, with one representative practically shooed off the stage in the middle of his presentation.

John Bigeni was asked by the department to present the European standard at the symposium, and he flew in from Australia to make his presentation. DOC deputy director general Themba Phiri interrupted him halfway through his speech, telling him his time was up.

The symposium lasted two days, and many industry representatives at the conference noted government's aggressive favour of the Japanese ISDB standard, sparking speculation that Brazil, the primary implementer of the ISDB standard, is putting pressure on SA.

Costs to increase

Vass says that, as far as e.tv is concerned, there is no cogent reason for government to be considering a change at this stage. Rumours indicate it may well be out of the industry's hands and that the ISDB adoption is likely to go ahead, if it has not already; however, the DOC has not yet confirmed this.

Vass says to adopt ISDB now will have severe consequences for the industry and consumers. “The effect of a change being touted by government will be to delay the introduction of DTT and hence access by the consumer to multichannel television. This will be exacerbated by the high cost of STBs [set-top boxes] as the proposed new standard has no economies of scale, having only been adopted in a handful of countries.”

Industry consensus is that the new standard will take between three and five years to implement.

Must be the same

In 2006, all the SADC countries agreed to take on the DVB standard as the primary technology for the entire region. At the same time, the International Telecoms Union decided that the digital migration process needs to be completed by 2015.

The region is supposed to use the same technology standard, so that there will be a good flow of skills and technologies between the countries in the area. Mauritius has already started its digital migration process and has 70% set-top box penetration on the standard.

Industry players feel it is unlikely that many of the SADC countries would be interested in changing standards at this late stage. Switching now could also mean that broadcasters will probably have to write off a speculated R100 million they have already invested in digital TV.

Not all bad

For the manufacturers, there may be a lesser effect. Altech UEC's business development director, Anton Lan, says the two technologies are more or less the same; however, for the South African context, ISDB comes with significantly more risk.

“We are a technology company and we can build any technology with any standard. However, the ISDB standard has never been implemented in the 8MHz configuration, which is the way SA is going,” he notes.

He says there is no local intellectual property around the ISDB standard, whereas there is in the DVB standard. “SA is particularly strong in the middleware, and government should be looking at utilising local IP in this,” he adds.

He says there will also be a slower release of the digital dividend, which will be used to increase telecoms competition, when the spectrum is released by the conversion of analogue TV to digital.

Economic considerations

The DOC was not immediately available to comment on the industry's concerns, but has indicated it will speak to ITWeb on the matter.

However, the DOC's director-general pointed out at the symposium that the department must look at all the options available and make sure the standard SA chooses aligns with the department's developmental plans.

Following Brazil and Japan would mean SA can further its bilateral trade agreements with the countries, which does contribute to SA's economic development.

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