Photo by: Duane Daws
On June 16, 2006, hundreds of countries agreed to a June 17, 2015, deadline to switch off their analogue transmissions; however, insufficient tabs had been kept on the status of the countries’ transition to digital broadcasting and a new platform has been proposed by the International Communication Union (ITU) to ensure a more accurate database.
The regional agreement signed at the ITU’s Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06), in Geneva, nearly a decade ago, was the start of the digitisation of the broadcasting industry in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
However, the status of around 44% of the signatory countries was unknown.
ITU radiocommunication engineer for terrestrial services and broadcasting division Michèle Coat Degert said that, while it is known that 23% of countries worldwide have completed the analogue-to-digital migration, there was no available data for more than 90 countries currently undertaking the project.
Initially proposed by Kenya, the radiocommunication and development divisions of the ITU established a beta Web platform better suited to provide an overview of the status of each country and region as they progressed their digital terrestrial television (DTT) migrations.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum 2015, in Fourways, on Tuesday, Degert said Kenya had requested an analogue-to-digital “stocktaking” to assist migrating countries with their own DTT projects.
The portal included the status of DTT deployment and digital switchover, links to different ITU workshops and other related activities, as well as technical assistance to different countries and useful documents and websites related to the transition to DTT.
According to the portal, the bulk of the signatory countries continued the migration with the digital broadcasting switched on and the analogue signals currently being transitioned out.
These included Angola, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Liberia, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mongolia, Mozambique, Singapore, Uganda and Yemen, besides others.
However, while many African countries grappled with their migrations, Mauritius, Tanzania and Rwanda had already completed the switchover.
The US and the UK, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Israel, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Austria, besides others, had already completed the DTT migration, with all analogue transmissions now switched off.
The portal showed that Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Lesotho and Libya had not yet started the dual illumination period.