Parliament happy with preparedness for digital migration
The Portfolio Committees on Communications and on Telecommunications and Postal Services are satisfied with the Department of Communications and various entities’ state of preparedness for the mandated roll out of the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) project in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline.
To this end, the two Committees have advised the Department to urgently commence with the DTT awareness campaign aimed at educating the public about the project. The Department said it has budgeted R90m for the awareness campaign.
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services, Ms Mmamoloko Kubayi, said although the Minister did not attend the meeting, the Department presented clear information about the roll-out of the project to the satisfaction of the Committees.
“We would like the Minister to be available at the next meeting when the agenda item before the Committees is about this project, but so far we appreciate the level of preparedness by the Department and entities,” Ms Kubayi said.
The Department was accompanied by the regulator, the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa, and the four state-owned companies that form part of the DTT implementing team – Sentech, the South African Post Office), Universal Services and Access Agency of South Africa, and the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation.
Sentech’s Chief Operations Officer, Mr Kganki Matabane, reported that as at 4 March 2015, Sentech had completed the roll-out of digital infrastructure of all 178 analogue sites, providing 84.01% population coverage and 57.82% geographic coverage.
He said that Sentech had experienced some challenges with the Napier site in the Western Cape, because of severe weather conditions, but it was completed last week.
DTT is the conversion of analogue to digital television and is meant to clear broadcasters from the radio frequency spectrum to enable the provision of mobile broadband services.
According to the ITU, countries in region one (which includes South Africa) should migrate broadcasting services from analogue to digital by 17 June 2015.
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