The need to build an inclusive information society outweighs the cost of set-top boxes (STBs) as the country prepares to migrate to digital terrestrial TV, communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has implied in a memorandum.
The memorandum, dated 20 September, was in reply to another issued by the Digital Dzonga Advisory Council. The group was set up to advise the minister and the Department of Communications (DOC) on the country's migration from analogue to digital signal broadcasting.
The concerns raised in the council's memo centred on the DOC's wish for the inclusion of encryption and conditional access (CA) and a return path. This would allow subscribers to access e-government services, but could substantially increase the retail costs of the STBs to above R1 000. This is R300 more than the worst case pricing of three months ago.
Cabinet has approved R2.4 billion for the subsidisation of STBs to the five million poorest households, with the expectation that the final costs of the units would be between R400 and R700.
Significant complexity
The Digital Dzonga memorandum stated the inclusion of encryption and traditional CA would likely add significant complexity and costs to the STBs.
“For instance, secret keys would have to be managed by a central entity and conditional access royalties on eight million STBs would need to be paid. These significant and unnecessary costs would be borne by the consumer and/or would unreasonably increase the government subsidy necessary for the STB,” the memorandum states.
The council also stated the cost would be prohibitive to some broadcasters and that the developmental goals set for digital terrestrial TV migration could be met without the use of encryption.
“The council, therefore, urges the department to remove the reference to encryption from the specification,” the memorandum states.
Cabinet decision
In her reply, Matsepe-Casaburri points out that the inclusion of encryption and conditional access was a Cabinet decision and that e-government services were a priority.
“The Digital Dzonga Advisory Council will probably agree with me that the price of building excellence in the electronics industry, with the objectives of creating jobs for our people and building an inclusive information society, far outweighs the cost of an STB with encryption and conditional access,” she states.
A cost analysis done by some members of the Digital Dzonga show an STB with full CA and a return path, using GSM 3G technology, would eventually retail for R1 064.46, as opposed to the R648.72 basic system that was recommended by the broadcasters. A mid-range solution that would include CA with Ethernet connectivity as its return path would retail for around R782.12.
Lara Kantor, chairperson of the Digital Dzonga advisory council, refused to comment directly on the contents of the memorandums, but said: “The costing analysis is a worst case scenario in that some of the inputs could be reduced considerably. For instance, the royalty payments can be almost halved.”
The DOC had not replied to ITWeb's queries at the time of publication.
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