The government has set itself a five-month target to complete the move from analogue to digital television, a process that has been hampered by delays and unmet deadlines for a decade.
The government began the migration to digital across households in the Free State, where it has made the most progress. But, given the pressure to complete the process, it has chosen to compress the project and move from a provincial migration to a national programme. The completion date is expected to be January 2022, two months before President Cyril Ramaphosa’s revised March 2022 deadline.
The new deadline comes six years after the June 2015 deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television. And it is 10 years after the government’s own deadline to switch off the analogue network — in November 2011.
Digital migration has been a thorn in the government’s flesh, and the heat has been turned up in the past two years as the telecoms regulator fights to issue radio frequency spectrum to mobile operators, another process that has been stymied by delays.
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa)’s plan to issue new spectrum was halted, after a high court ruling in March that the auction should stop pending a judicial review of contentions raised by Telkom and e.tv. The television station has a stake in the process because its broadcast airwaves penetrate buildings and are ideal for sending cellular signals over long distances.
However, communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said, these delays should not be of concern as “[the government] has the capability and capacity for an immediate switch-off”.
“We are confident of our case and the courts have to be rational. If rationality and logic is applied, given what we have done to make sure that all the bases are covered in terms of what is the government’s obligation ... the courts won’t delay anything,” she told Business Day.
The new plan will be spearheaded by Tebogo Leshope, COO of Sentech, which provides broadcast transmission services to all SABC radio and television stations. Leshope is said to have helped a number of countries in the region with their digital migration.
“The committee meets on a fortnightly basis to lead the switch-over process. We will report to the cabinet on a monthly basis and update the nation about the progress at least once a month,” Ntshavheni said.
Initially, the rollout included installation of set-top boxes that would convert digital signal to analogue for older television models, as well as the setting up of antennas, where necessary, in a massive undertaking requiring a huge amount of labour. In the Free State, some beneficiaries of the set-top boxes have reported faults in the product leading to the boxes being discarded.
The processes of installing the set-top boxes has been slow with 1.184-million qualifying households out of the estimated 3.75-million receiving the boxes through government support since 2015, Ntshavheni said during a media briefing on Tuesday.
Migration will clear the radio frequency spectrum occupied by broadcasters to allow faster wireless mobile broadband services and other applications.
In addition, there needs to be a clear time frame for dual illumination — where analogue and digital run concurrently — followed by a partial switch-off, followed by full digital migration. The process also requires public education and awareness programmes.
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