Pretoria - Communications Minister Faith Muthambi will wrap up the year by visiting three provinces to spread the word to communities about the migration from analogue broadcasting to digital.
On Tuesday, Minister Muthambi will engage residents of ward 17 under the Umfolozi Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal about the significance of digital migration and its benefits to South Africans.
The event will take place at the Donda Sports Field, where residents are set to receive government subsidised Set-Top Box decoders (STB’s).
Government has committed to providing five million indigent homeowners - in possession of TV sets - with STB's which convert broadcasting signal from analogue to digital.
South African households with a combined income of R3 200 or less are eligible for a subsidised set-top box. To qualify, the household members must be South African citizens, with a valid television licence.
Minister Muthambi will also interact with traditional leaders in the area and seek their support in encouraging their respective communities to register for the STB’s.
“Traditional leaders continue to play a key role in our society … they are instrumental in disseminating information critical to the uplifting of the lives of their communities.
“In all provinces where we have enlisted the support of traditional leaders to drive public awareness of digital migration, we have seen an increase in the uptake of decoders,” she said.
The Department of Communications, is working together with the South African Post Office, to reach communities and to distribute the television decoders. As part of its public awareness campaigns, the department has also embarked on door-to-door visits.
The department said the total projected qualifying households with functional TVs in KwaZulu-Natal are 895 738; a total of 50 475 set-top boxes registrations have been processed up to 7 December 2016 and 23 443 set-top boxes installations have been completed.
On 22 December, Minister Muthambi will take the digital migration awareness campaign to Thabo Mofutsanyane Municipality in the Free State and Mpumalanga on 29 December.
In October the Minister officially switched off the analogue system in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) area, signalling the biggest change to the television revolution in the country.
There are over 3 700 households in the town of Carnavon, Vanwyksvlei, Brandvlei, Vosburg and Williston, that have fully migrated to the digital platform.
Residents living in the SKA community of Keimoes and Kai Garib in Northern Cape province were the first people in South Africa to experience digital broadcasting in the country.
In 2015, the Minister kick started the registration process for STBs in the same area.
Subsequent to this, Minister Muthambi launched the first installation of government subsidised STBs in Keimoes in December last year.
Registrations will open in the North West, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Gauteng at a later stage.
Digital broadcasting works by translating sound and picture into digital data rather than analogue waveforms and the process is key for opening up more frequencies and faster mobile broadband services.-SAnews.gov.za
