Pretoria - Communications Minister Faith Muthambi says she is taking the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) awareness campaign to the rural villages to ensure that all South Africans are aware of the move to stop the transmission of analogue television signal to a digital broadcasting system.
The DTT awareness campaign will be rolled out in the Rabali village in Makhado, Limpopo, on Saturday.
“There is no turning back in migrating from analogue to digital television broadcasting. We are aware that the majority of our people do not have much information about this project.
“What is important for us is to embark on this DTT consumer awareness campaign to explain to our people what digital migration is ... the significance of migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting.
“We will use this Imbizo to tell villagers that they will need Set Top Boxes (STB’s) that will allow analogue television owners to watch digital television signals when South Africa’s broadcast migration happens,” she said.
The Minister is also expected to use the platform to urge more women, people with disabilities and the youth to take advantage of the opportunities that will come from the digital migration process.
She said government was committed to providing free STBs to five million households who cannot afford to buy them.
Government will design a course for those who want to become accredited installers of STBs in preparation for the switch to a digital migration broadcasting system.
The need for a DTT programme derives from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) resolution where countries in region 1, consisting of Europe, Russia, Africa and the Middle East, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, should migrate their broadcasting services from analogue to digital by 17 June 2015.
The main reason for the migration is to release valuable spectrum which can be used for other services. Spectrum is scarce, and it is necessary to make efficient use of the spectrum available for more telecommunications and broadcasting services.
In March earlier this year, state-owned signal operator, Sentech indicated that it completed the roll-out of digital infrastructure of 178 analogue sites, meaning that its digital infrastructure has an 84.01% population coverage and 57.82% geographic coverage.-SAnews.gov.za
