Pretoria – Government’s agenda with regards to the broadcast digital migration policy is to successfully complete the migration from analogue to digital and to do so in the interest of all South Africans.
This is according to the Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi.
In a statement on Friday, the Minister reiterated that the broadcast digital migration policy was a decision of Cabinet and would be done in the interest of all South Africans, not “just the narrow commercial interests of individual broadcasters or manufacturers whose decisions are made in their own personal interest and for profit”.
She said government had increased tariffs on imported set top boxes and stipulated a local content quota for the subsidised set top boxes to support local manufacture. It was also government who will ensure that public broadcasting in the country will be universally available to all South Africans.
“Government has consulted all interested parties on the digital migration policy. One of my predecessors was even taken to court by eTV. The decision of that court has been respected in the policy.
“Encryption is a commercial decision to be made by individual broadcasters and they remain free to make this decision and manage it at their own cost,” said Minister Muthambi.
Referring to an article published in the Business Day this week entitled “Threat of close control over TV content”, the Minister said there were factual inaccuracies in the article.
“Firstly, the STBs will have a secure bootloader so it is factually incorrect to say that any malicious software can be downloaded,” she said, referring the reporter to SANS 862, the standard for free to air STBS which stipulates the requirement for a secure bootloader.
The Minister said paragraph 6.3.2.1 of the SANS 862 deals with the secure download function.
“Secondly, encryption is required to switch off the services of a subscriber. It is not necessary to protect content. If this was the case, why have other public broadcasters across the world not encrypted their digital terrestrial broadcasting signal? In fact public broadcasters like the BBC specifically rejected encryption because they feared it could undermine universal access.
“Encryption does not prevent content from being pirated. Pay TV broadcasters spend a fortune fighting piracy - we know this because they continue to lobby for stronger measures to combat piracy,” she said.
Minister Muthambi added that the SANS 862 specification, specifically paragraph 4.1, Table 1, indicates the major hardware and firmware requirements for the decoder which makes High-bandwidth Digital Copy Protection (HDCP) mandatory.
“Thirdly, the existing policy allows for mass messaging.”
Also, government will require a security feature to protect its investment in the subsidised STBs to prevent subsidised STBs from functioning across the borders of the republic.
Amendments to the broadcast digital migration policy were published in the Government Gazette by the Department of Communications on 18 March and is available on the departmental website www.doc.gov.za and is also available free online at www.gpwonline.co.za. – SAnews.gov.za
