Mohlala seeks to calm waters ahead of big TV confab

28 Apr 2010

Ahead of what promises to be a fiery two-day symposium in Midrand on Thursday and Friday (29-30 April 2010), Mamodupi Mohlala, director-general in the department of communications, is seeking to play down industry concerns that South Africa plans summarily to ditch the standard it has adopted for digital terrestrial television.

In an interview with TechCentral in Pretoria on Wednesday 28 April, Mohlala insisted no deal has been done with Brazil to adopt Japan's integrated services digital broadcasting terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard. SA adopted the rival European digital video broadcast terrestrial (DVB-T) standard in 2006 and has run extensive trials using the technology.

Industry leaders have been taken aback by government's announcement last week that it will consider other digital standards for terrestrial broadcasting, saying the move could set back the migration to digital television by years. The migration to digital is expected to free up scarce radio frequency spectrum that can then be used to introduce new channels, offer high-definition television and provide wireless broadband services.

Continue reading the full story on www.TechCentral.co.za.

Source: TechCentral

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Duncan McLeod

About Duncan McLeod

Award-wining Duncan McLeod is the founder and editor of TechCentral (wwwTechCentral.co.za, @TechCentral]]), South Africa's latest technology news site offering breaking news, in-depth analysis and opinion that launched in September 2009. Before that, he was associate editor at the Financial Mail/FM. Contact Duncan on email duncan at techcentral dot co dot za and follow him on Twitter at @mcleodd.