Treasury has allocated R1.192 billion to the Department of Communications to fund a new television network and subsidise set-top boxes for the poor over the next three years.
The figures are contained in the 2011 Estimates of National Expenditure, which details each department's allocations for the next three financial years. The document was handed out along with finance minister Pravin Gordhan's budget speech, delivered in Parliament this afternoon.
Treasury has allocated a total of R690 million to subsidise set-top boxes in the next three years, and almost R622 million for Sentech to upgrade its network to broadcast in digital. This is in addition to amounts that were allocated for the current financial year, which comes to an end at the end of next month.
South Africa is set to turn off analogue broadcast towards the end of 2013 and will move to digital television using the European DVB-T2 standard. Several years ago, government decided to switch to digital using DVB-T, the forerunner to DVB-T2.
Communications minister Roy Padayachie announced in January that SA would migrate using DVB-T2, ending months of speculation over what standard would be used.
Last year, the department, under former minister Siphiwe Nyanda, halted migration when it decided to explore the possible use of the Brazilian upgrade to the Japanese ISBD-T standard. The move irked the industry, which had spent at least R700 million gearing up for migration and halted Sentech's upgrade of the television network.
Consider it covered
Sentech has, so far, covered about a third of SA's population with digital signal, but will have to upgrade its network to DVB-T2. At the end of March last year, R515 million had been spent on digital infrastructure rollout.
According to the Estimates of National Expenditure for the coming financial year, Sentech is expected to have covered 96% of SA in anticipation of analogue switch-off in 2013. It should reach 60% of population coverage by the end of next Month.
Sentech was allocated R110 million for dual illumination during the current financial year that is due to end. In the new year, the state signal provider has been allocated R120 million. It has not been allocated further funding for dual illumination after the 2011/12 financial year.
The state entity was allocated a total of R501 million for the next three years to deploy a digital television network. Treasury allocated R159 million in the new financial year and R167 million in the 2012/13 year.
In 2013/14, the final year included as part of government's three-year medium-term framework, Sentech has been allocated R176.1 million. Last year, Sentech received R160.9 million for digitisation.
The Department of Communications was allocated a total of R870 million to subsidise set-top boxes. Of this, R180 million was allocated for subsidies in the current financial year, which ends next month. The balance, of R690 million, has been earmarked for subsidies over the next three years.
About 10 million households will need set-top boxes to decode digital signal so that it can be received on old analogue television sets. Cabinet had initially earmarked R2.45 billion to subsidise the poor, who would not have been able to afford the decoders, which were previously expected to cost about R700 each.
However, as government has endorsed the use of DVB-T2 decoders, which cannot be manufactured until several other aspects are wrapped up, such as the set-top box controls to prevent stolen boxes working outside of SA, it is unclear how much these boxes will cost.
The department will also focus on wrapping up and monitoring the implementation of the set-top box manufacturing strategy, the subsidy scheme, and the local digital content development strategy in the year ahead.
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