Pretoria - All systems are in place ahead of Communications Minister Faith Muthambi’s community Imbizo on Saturday.
The Minister will share with the residents of Thabazimbi how digital migration will improve television coverage in their area, says Acting Director General of Communications Ndivhuho Munzhelele.
“We’ve already finished with our preparations for this outreach community programme … all our entities are ready to take the communication revolution to Thabazimbi. Even our Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) technical team is ready to conduct a live demonstration of how the television picture will look post-digital migration,” he said.
As part of a nationwide consumer awareness campaign on the Broadcasting Digital Migration project, as well as communicating the services and opportunities offered the Department of Communications, Minister Muthambi will embark on a community outreach programme at the Skelpadnest sports field.
The Minister will be accompanied by senior executives from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and Film and Publication Board.
The South African Post Office, which is the distributing agent on behalf of government for the set-top- box devices, will be onsite on the day to explain the process of registering qualifying TV households.
“This is our efforts to bring communications revolution to all corners of country. We intend to use the upcoming community outreach programme to intensify our consumer awareness campaign and education on Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) that provides a series of exciting opportunities for quality television access, content development and entrepreneurship especially to young South Africans,” said Minister Muthambi.
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
