The final two sites to transmit the broadcasting frequencies of South Africa’s digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform will go live in March.
State-owned signal distributor Sentech would switch on two of the four greenfield sites – in Burgersfort, Limpopo, and in Holy Cross, in the Eastern Cape – after flipping the switch on a site in Harrismith, in the Free State, and one in Ngqeleni, in the Eastern Cape, last month.
This comes as the Department of Communications moves to implement the final stages in South Africa’s years-overdue transition from analogue television broadcasting to digital broadcasting.
In a phased approach over the next 36 months, starting in the final quarter of this year, the analogue frequencies would be switched off province by province as the subsidised set-top boxes were deployed and the much-anticipated analogue switch off programme kicked off.
In March, Sentech had gone live on all 178 of its upgraded DTT migration transmitters across South Africa, with all 182 sites expected to ensure a digital terrestrial population coverage of 84.46% and geographic coverage of 58.49%.
The balance would be covered by satellite transmissions.