Citizens will have to pay almost twice the amount they would have paid had the country used the European-based digital video broadcasting standard (DVB-T). SA is still to decide on whether to adopt DVB-T or the Brazilian-backed International System for Digital Broadcast (ISDB-Tb).
According to Dave Hagen, deputy chair of the Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association (SADIBA), there is a huge demand for DVB-T internationally. “DVB-T is the most widely adopted DTT (digital terrestrial television) system in the world, with more than 150 million receivers sold in more than 40 countries.
“Basing on the economies of scale, there is a low demand for the Brazilian-adopted ISDB-Tb, which SA is considering to implement. This will mean consumers will have to pay a higher price for this product.”
Proponents of the ISDB-Tb also claim the broadcasting standard is cheaper as it is royalty-free. However, Hagen says: “The claim that ISDB-Tb is royalty-free is not true, because both ISDB-Tb and DVB-T are subject to the same patents, royalties and IP restrictions.
“In particular, both standards use the OFDM (the basic modulation system) as well as the MPEG 2 or 4 technologies (the compression system), and the rights to these technologies are owned by third parties, and these royalties have to be paid regardless of the standard that the country takes.”
In its presentation to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications last month, SADIBA said in order for SA to run applications on ISDB-Tb, certain software called 'middleware' is required. The association said the Brazilian government did not want to pay royalties to foreign institutions and developed Ginga, an interactive standard, which they claim is open source.
“Ginga was developed with US Sun Microsystems, which charges a $0.76 royalty per set-top box (STB). In order to use Ginga in SA, the country has to pay for middleware from Brazil at a cost of $2.50 to $5.00 per STB.”
Hagen says the ISDB-Tb standard will be difficult, if not impossible, to adopt in SA. The country falls within region one of the International Telecommunication Union's (ICU's) broadcasting, mainly covering Africa and Europe. “The region uses 8MHz configurations, in regards to bandwidth, whereas the ISDB-Tb can accommodate 6MHz configurations,” says Hagen.
He adds that ISDB-Tb has never been deployed in an 8MHz environment mainly because an STB or transmitter designed for a 6MHz environment will not work in an 8MHz setting.
Local STB manufactures are also crying foul, saying if SA was to adopt ISDB-Tb, their market will only be restricted to those few countries that have adopted the standard.
Hagen says SA has 10 million households with television sets, and these viewers are being deprived of multiplex viewing, which will bring more information, entertainment as well as education. He adds that the digital switch will give South Africans a choice of 24 channels.
In 2006, SA had formally agreed to adopt the DVB-T standard used in Europe. Four years down the line, in April this year, the Department of Communications called a convention to consider other options like Japan's digital ISDB, which was adopted by Brazil.
The confusion will probably see SA missing the ITU target date of 17 July 2015 to complete the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting. After this date, SA's analogue frequencies will not be protected legally.