Minister assures S Africans no TV disruptions

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Pretoria - Missing the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline to migrate from analogue format to digital broadcasting should not be a cause for concern for South African television viewers, says Communications Minister Faith Muthambi.

“I am confident that South African television viewers will not face broadcasting disruptions after today’s ITU deadline (June 17), where those of us….analogue users will no longer be protected from signal interference,” she said.

In confirming that the country would miss today’s deadline, Minister Muthambi said: “As we have indicated before, our country is not in a position to migrate to the digital platform by this date”.

At the Regional Radio Communication Conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2006, ITU member states set June 17 this year as the deadline for the switchover from analogue format to digital broadcasting system.

However, Minister Muthambi, together with her Digital Migration Programme Management Office (DTT-PMO), has conducted a risk mitigation analysis which has established that the most immediate television signal interference threat would come from outside the borders of the country.

In an effort to obey the conditions set out by the ITU for nations that fail to meet the migration deadline of not interfering with the digital transmission of their neighbouring countries, Minister Muthambi has since signed agreements of cooperation with neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

The purpose of these agreements is to harmonise the utilisation of Radio Frequency Spectrum as the countries undergo the digital migration to ensure that there will be no interference.

Minister Muthambi said the measure of the success of her engagements is that all these countries are assured that today’s ITU deadline will come and go without any major negative impact on their analogue television services.

“As a Ministry, we wish to make South Africans aware that the digital migration project is still a top priority for the department as it is important for clearing the spectrum for the delivery of broadband services.

“The DTT-PMO is hard at work to ensure that set-top-boxes are manufactured and delivered to complete the migration process,” she said.

The process of rolling out of set-top boxes (STB) is aimed at a period of between 18-24 months once the Minister announces dual-illumination period after consulting the Cabinet based on the potential timelines of the availability of STBs. - SAnews.gov.za