Despite the Department of Communications indicating through its spokespeople that the issue of set-top box controls has been taken off the table in a bid to speed up digital TV migration, it has now indicated conditional access has not been removed.
In a letter sent to industry stakeholders this week, the department says set-top box controls have not been removed from the tender and minister Dina Pule is considering a review of the policy to make controls non-mandatory.
However, spokesman Wisani Ngobeni says conditional access has been removed from the tender in a bid to speed up migration. He says the department will review its Digital Broadcasting Migration policy, but this would take some time, which is why the department has removed set-top box controls from the tender in the meantime.
Tender process
Ngobeni says the department's policy remains its stated position, which it detailed in court papers when defending the action against etv, when the broadcaster took Pule to court over her decision to appoint Sentech to handle the issue of conditional access.
The free-to-air broadcaster won its bid and the department later dropped its appeal against the ruling. However, the department's argument was that conditional access is needed to stop subsidised boxes being stolen and used outside of SA, and to stop grey imports.
The state will subsidise about 70% of the cost of around five million boxes for the poor, but has yet to issue a tender for the production of the subsidised boxes due to the court battle. The matter was then negotiated, and etv and the South African Broadcasting Corporation are moving ahead with a tender for controls, after the court ruled the broadcasters should handle the matter.
The public broadcaster has not responded to several requests for information as to where it is with the process, while etv says the decoder control tender process has already been approved by etv and is pending SABC board approval.
Not removed
The department earlier this month issued an erratum through advertisements in major papers, saying the issue of controls, in the form of Nagravision, which Sentech was set to use, had been dropped from the tender.
However, a letter apparently sent on behalf of Wonder Dlangamandla, chief director of technology and infrastructure in the digital television project management office, notes the erratum "was meant to remove the reference to Nagravision and Sentech" from the tender.
"This does not mean set-top box control has been removed from the tender or otherwise."
The letter adds that conditional access has not been removed from the policy and Pule is considering reviewing the policy to make it "non-mandatory". Ngobeni says he has not seen the letter.
Pule has said she would soon release a revised draft broadband digital migration policy dealing with the set-top box controls, inviting stakeholders to provide their input on the areas being revised.
In her recent budget speech, Pule said the department would review set-top box controls to make them non-mandatory to speed up migration.
Etv COO Bronwyn Keene-Young has said current policies mandating controls "cannot be changed willy-nilly" so it is continuing with the process on the basis of the policy.
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