The South Gauteng High Court is expected to next week hand down a decision on whether Sentech should manage set-top box controls.
Free-to-air broadcaster etv took the communications minister to court over her decision to have state-signals provider Sentech handle conditional access controls for set-top boxes.
Kathleen Rice, director of technology, media and telecommunications at law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, acting on behalf of Sentech, which was also cited by etv, says a decision should be handed down next week by acting judge Gerrit Pretorius.
The broadcaster's case, which was recently heard, argues that minister Dina Pule's decision is unlawful. The department has hit back and argues that etv's bid is surprising, as all the stakeholders have been working together.
It also says it has the necessary authority to choose an entity to manage controls, which are required in a bid to stop stolen subsidised boxes being used outside of SA's borders.
Due date
The decoders will be required by about 11 million households for analogue televisions to continue picking up signal, after SA switches to digital TV. Commercial turn-on is scheduled for around the end of the year, while turn-off must have happened by the middle of 2015, at the latest.
Government has set aside R2.45 billion to subsidise as much as 70% of the cost of the box, estimated at R400, for about five million houses.
The broadcaster's bid to have it and the South African Broadcasting Corporation and other free-to-air broadcasters handle controls has raised fears that the turn-on deadline could again be missed. Etv argues that the issue of controls is vital before SA can migrate.
Several turn-on, and -off, deadlines have been missed since Cabinet decided to implement digital TV, based on the widely-used European DVB-T standard, in 2006. Last January, the department decided to move ahead with DVB-T2 and set November 2013 for turn-off.
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