Energy solutions provider Jasco Power said on Monday that it would be playing a “significant” role in South Africa’s migration to digital terrestrial television (DTT), providing the failover and protection needed for the new enabling equipment being installed nationally by signal distributor Sentech.

Sentech was the major signal distributor for most of the country’s broadcasters, including commercial and community broadcasters, as well as public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The uninterruptible power sources (UPS’s) designed, manufactured, installed and commissioned by Jasco would help to ensure the reliability of DTT broadcasts when this service was switched on, while the provision of automatic voltage regulators (AVRs) at switching centres would deliver constant “clean” power to sensitive equipment.

With the International Telecommunications Union deadlines for global switchover to DTT set for mid-2015, gearing the service across Sentech’s 200 transmission sites in South Africa was a priority.

Jasco Power Solutions MD Marco da Silva said steady, reliable power supply to transmission equipment was crucial to ensuring uninterrupted broadcasts.

“The UPS’s are tailormade to meet the physical and capacity needs of each site, with an emphasis on future scalability and compactness of design and, as many of these sites are remote and difficult to access, form factor is a key consideration,” he noted.

Jasco Power designed four different configurations to meet the needs of various sites, before sourcing the hardware components and developing the UPS’s.

Four specialised Jasco teams then delivered and installed the equipment, travelling across the country to more than 70 sites, many of which were remote and accessible only in off-road vehicles.

The awarding of a contract to install AVR’s at two of Sentech’s main switching sites followed.

“This equipment will ensure constant ‘clean’ power is available to sensitive switching equipment,” said Da Silva, adding that installation of equipment to enable DTT nationally was between 60% and 70% complete.