Pretoria - Residents in Mabopane, north of Pretoria, have promissed they will not sell the government-issued free set-top boxes which will be used to migrate broadcasting services from analogue to digital.
On Saturday, Communications Minister Faith Muthambi visited the area to raise awareness about the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) programme.
Senior citizen, Michael Maleka from Ward 22 in Block U said: “I must be honest with you, I’ve never heard about digital migration before and I need to thank the Minister who explained it very well for us… we also want to promise the Minister that we are not going to sell or vandalise the free decoders they are going to distribute to us," he said.
Maleka who is also a community leader praised Minister Muthambi for also opening a Parliamentary Constituency Office in the area.
“In the past 21 years, this is the first Minister to visit our area to come down to the people to explain a new government project, it has never happened here…apart from that, I also like her humility…these are the type of leaders we want in our government.”
Another resident, Ephenia Puoane said: “Once we receive the set top boxes, nobody will steal them and we are not going to put the decoders on sale.”
If consumers have not acquired a set-top box by the time the country switches to digital broadcasting, they will no longer be able to view the existing terrestrial television broadcasting services.
In order to view digital television signals on an ordinary analogue television set, consumers will need a STB. The purpose of the STBs is to convert the digital signal for reception on an ordinary analogue television set.
Government will provide free STBs to more than five million poor household owners to migrate broadcasting services from analogue to digital.
The process of manufacturing the five million STBs is underway, following the appointment of manufacturers by the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa.
Minister Muthambi said the South African Post Office, which is the distributing agent of the STBs, will start with a massive nation-wide registration drive of poor tv-owning households.-SAnews.gov.za
