SA will miss digital TV conversion deadline

Rapport newspaper says that the delay will mean that analog television will use up bandwidth which is necessary for faster Internet services.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has said that after June 2015 countries will no longer be protected against disruptions of the radio waves that are used for analog television broadcasts.

The original plan had been to make the switch from the analog to the digital signal by 2008.

A communications department official told Rapport that the government would have to negotiate with the ITU to protect its analog broadcast network after the 2015 deadline.

"There is not enough time left. All we can do now is to extend the cut-off date," assistant director for information and communication technology, Themba Phiri, told Rapport.

The switch from analog to digital requires that the government distribute between five and seven million decoders to poor households. It was estimated it will cost about R4.5bn to subsidise five million decoders.

Another problem was that the department had insisted that the decoders be manufactured locally.

A further hurdle was that Communications Minister Dina Pule and e.tv are involved in a legal battle to determine who should be in charge of the decoders and the technology used to convert digital television signals.

Two weeks ago Pule indicated she would appeal a court ruling that she acted improperly by putting state-owned broadcasting company Sentech in charge of this process.

Source: The Times via I-Net Bridge