Digital Migration: Analogue Switching Off

South Africa has on 28 October 2016 held an event in the Northern Cape to mark the first phase of Analogue Switching Off (ASO). The ASO is one of the critical milestone of the Broadcasting Digital Migration process. This symbolizes capabilities of Broadcasting Digital Migration stakeholders who made it possible to reach this stage.

The Northern Cape in the Square Kilometer Array area became the first province in the country to switch off its analogue signal. Analogue transmitters were switched off in the following towns, Van Wyksvlei; Brandvlei; Williston; Vosburg and Carnarvon.

The registration is currently underway in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Free State and will be rolled-out to the rest of the country in phases.

The main event in the Northern Cape was attend by senior government officials including the Minister of the Department of Communication and Presidency, BDM stakeholders together with ICT International bodies such as International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and SADC.

The main reason for the world’s migration to digital is to release valuable spectrum which can be used for other services. Spectrum is scarce; therefore more efficient use of the spectrum is necessary if more terrestrial telecommunications and broadcasting services are to be made available. With digital broadcasting, sound, video, text and still images can be transmitted using a technology that allows for information to be compressed, thus using frequency spectrum efficiently.

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