The South African Communications Forum (SACF) on Thursday praised Cabinet’s decision to include a control system for set-top boxes (STBs) in subsidised decoders.

Cabinet on Wednesday put to bed the hotly contested issue of STB control by approving the use of a control system to protect government’s more than R2-billion investment to subsidise 70% of the cost of STBs for five-million of South Africa’s poorest television-owning households.

Cabinet said the decision would ensure that the government subsidy was “used productively” and would reduce the possibility of cheap, imported STBs “that are not fully functional” flooding the South African market.

It would also protect the interests of public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, while reducing the extent of monopolisation and encouraging competition by creating space for new players in the pay television market without them unfairly benefitting from the government subsidy.

Cabinet also believed that its decision would stimulate the local electronics industry and create jobs and benefit emerging entrepreneurs – a sentiment the SACF shared.

“The inclusion of a control system in the STB to be used for digital migration will promote industrial development, job creation, access to information and black economic empowerment,” SACF CEO Loren Braithwaite-Kabosha stated.

A control system on the STB was mandatory under the selected South African Bureau of Standards SANS 862, she pointed out, and the scrapping of the conditional control access system, as called for by the Black Business Council and the National Association of Manufacturers in Electronic Components, would have caused a six- to nine-month delay in the migration to digital terrestrial television and monetary losses to industry.

South Africa’s transition to digital television had already been set back four years and has cost the industry millions. The removal of conditional access for STBs would lead to further losses, she added.

However, Cabinet noted that a control system on nonsubsidised decoders was not mandatory and government’s investment in the STB control system would be recovered from subscription broadcasters who chose to make use of the system.

There was no clarification on how this divide could be bridged or what framework would guide the option of inserting the control system.

“ … SACF believe that the government chose a balanced approach, which takes into account the interests of all parties, including government itself, which will be paying for the subsidised STBs,” said Braithwaite-Kabosha.

“SACF hopes that, as Cabinet has urged, all parties can now move on from their previous differences and work together with the government in rolling out digital migration.”

Meanwhile, Cabinet also approved the ambitious National Broadband Policy, Strategy and Plan, also known as ‘South Africa Connect’, which was aimed at providing a universal average download speed of 100 Mb/s by 2030.

It further approved the gazetting of the National Integrated Information and Communication Technology Policy Green Paper for public consultation.

This followed the conclusion of a 22-member panel review of all the critical research on the frameworks governing telecommunications and information technology, broadcasting, investment and manufacturing, postal services, content development and digitising government.

The Green Paper deals with the need to amend policies and regulations to take account of the rapid changes in information and communication technology in recent years. Public hearings would be held in all provinces in early 2014.

Communications Minister Yunus Carrim would, on Friday, discuss Cabinet’s decisions at a media briefing.