Name and Location
Digital broadcasting migration project, South Africa.

Client
The Department of Communications (DoC) and Sentech.

Project Description
Digital terrestrial television (DTT) is the implementation of digital technology to provide more channels and/or better picture quality and sound using a conventional television antenna or aerial, instead of a satellite dish or cable connection.

In 2005, State-owned enterprise Sentech announced its plans to roll out DTT using digital video broadcasting terrestrial (DVB-T) technology, in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Initially, there will be two DVB-T transmitters for each location or site.

The first phase of the project involves upgrading the Sentech broadcast network and duplicating the current analogue network channels on a digital system.

Most of the 220 sites needed to broadcast DTT to 92% of South Africa's population are in place, but have to be upgraded to become fully digital. Once that process has been completed, DTT and analogue systems will run simultaneously (a dual-illumination process) until South Africa is ready to switch off analogue transmission. This decision will be made by government.

Consumers will require a set-top box (STB) to decode the signal, even for public broadcasting and free-to-air channels. The STBs are expected to be subsidised.

Once the migration to DTT is complete, the country will no longer have exclusive use of the frequencies.

Value
The upgrade is expected to cost R1-billion.

Supplying the STBs will cost an estimated R2.45-billion.

Duration
According to an agreement with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the country has until 2015 to complete the migration.

Latest Developments
Free-to-air broadcaster e.tv is set to challenge Communication Minister Faith Muthambi’s decision on a control system for government’s subsidised STBs.

The broadcaster will submit to the Gauteng High Court to have aspects of the Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) policy reviewed.

The policy, the amended version of which was gazetted in March, outlines new policy plans for government to adopt a control system for the 100%-subsided STBs it will provide for five-million of South Africa’s poorest households.

e.tv has requested that the provision stating that the subsidised STBs will not have the capability to encrypt broadcast signals be set aside and that the provision wherein the STB control system is nonmandatory be amended.

e. tv COO Mark Rosin has said in a statement that the company aims to ensure the freedom of choice in deciding whether to encrypt its own broadcast signals – a choice that is the policy prevents.

“In one provision, the Minister purports to allow broadcasters the right to make their own decisions on the question of encryption. But in another adjacent provision, the Minister renders this right entirely nugatory and meaningless by stating that the five-million government-subsidised STBs will not have the capability to encrypt,” Rosin explains.

“e.tv considers it essential that it be able to encrypt its broadcast signal primarily because this would prevent noncompliant STBs from receiving digital broadcast signals, thereby ensuring a uniform and reliable viewer experience,” Rosia has explained.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
The project is six years behind schedule.

There have been several migration delays since South Africa reached an agreement with the ITU in 2006 to migrate from an analogue to a digital signal by mid-2015.

One of the major stumbling blocks was the dispute about whether the STBs should have a control system.

The South African Communications Forum previously told Engineering News Online that delays in South Africa’s transition to digital television had cost the country’s STB manufacturing industry more than R50-million and stressed that any more delays would lead to further losses.

Former Communications Minister Yunus Carrim has pointed out that the scrapping of the control system resulted in a further 36-week delay – and not the six-month delay as was initially thought – as the South African Bureau of Standards needed to rework the STB specifications (SANS 862) to exclude the STB control system.

Contact Details for Project Information
DoC media liaison officer Siya Qoza, tel +27 12 427 8511.
Sentech, tel +27 11 691 7000.