Bushbuckridge - The race to the analogue switch off will gain momentum later today when Communications Minister Faith Muthambi takes the first digital migration consumer awareness campaign to Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga.
Minister Muthambi’s Department of Communications has prioritised rolling out the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) project in all the border-lying areas across the country in order to protect the array and the country from radio signal interference.
Registration of households that are to receive free Set-Top Boxes (STBs) started in the Northern Cape’s Square Kilometre Array (SKA) area last month, where a total of 192 applications were processed within the first five days of the drive.
Since the official launch of the STB registration process in the last four weeks, about 1 000 qualifying households have registered to receive STBs that are subsidised by government.
Minister Muthambi is expected to explain to residents why it is important for the country to move from analogue to digital television. She will also outline the economic benefits that are associated with the digital migration project.
Realising that the country will not meet the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) June 17 deadline on digital migration, Minister Muthambi took action.
Together with her team, she worked tirelessly to ensure that South Africans, including those in the border-lying areas, are still able to watch free-to-air television channels without any interference beyond the June 17 deadline.
This was done through a process of signing agreements of co-operation with Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique and Namibia in order to avoid a possible television signal interference threat from outside South Africa's borders.
After today’s consumer awareness campaign, residents of Bushbuckridge, just like other South Africans in rural areas, will understand that digital migration involves shifting broadcasters from analogue to digital signals, and the process is key for opening up more frequencies and allowing faster mobile broadband services.
In the past few months, Minister Muthambi and her team have been visiting rural areas across the country to educate people about digital migration. - SAnews.gov.za
