South Africa’s migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) could finally gain traction over the next few weeks after the Department of Communications (DoC) withdrew its appeal against a court decision on the conditional access control over subsidised set-top boxes (STBs).

The STBs will be required to receive a digital terrestrial signal and South Africa has made a commitment to the International Telecommunications Union to migrate from an analogue to a digital signal by the middle of 2015.

On Monday, the DoC backtracked on its decision to contest the South Gauteng High Court’s December ruling, which stated that, besides DoC-appointed signal distributor Sentech, other broadcasters should also be granted conditional access control.

The DoC described its withdrawal of the appeal as a “goodwill” gesture.

Communications Minister Dina Pule, who was confident of launching commercial DTT before the year was out, previously commented that the migration could be delayed by three years if broadcasters and the DoC failed to fast-track a decision on the conditional access control.

The DoC’s October ‘soft launch’ in the Northern Cape was meant to be followed by a nationwide commercial launch in December.

However, the much-delayed project and the awarding of the tender for the manufacture of five-million subsidised STBs had been halted until the legal dispute between the DoC and free-to-air broadcaster e.tv was resolved.

The department, State-owned broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and e.tv, besides others, continued with court-ordered talks into the role of each party in the implementation of the conditional access, the continuation of the STB tender and the delivery of the STBs to the market to the DoC.

“An agreement between all parties is imminent,” Pule said.

Meanwhile, Sentech, which had been tasked with ensuring sufficient digital terrestrial signal coverage, was on track to achieve over 80% DTT coverage by March this year – closing in on its 88% population coverage target.

Sentech aimed to ensure that South Africa received 88% coverage by December 2013. The remaining 12%, deemed too difficult or uneconomical for terrestrial broadcasting, will receive the digital broadcasting signals through direct-to-home satellite signals.

The completion of the digital migration will be a step forward in the DoC’s aim of broadband for all by 2020, with the release of the much-needed spectrum.

The additional spectrum will allow the telecommunications industry to roll out planned next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) networks, which use considerable bandwidth to reach download speeds of 100 Mb/s, and close the digital divide.

LTE-suitable bandwidth is in high demand and short supply, and many local mobile operators have been laying the groundwork for the LTE networks in preparation for speedy roll-out of the technology.

Pule commented that South Africa was in the process of finalising its Broadband Strategy and Implementation Plan.

Once the migration is completed analogue broadcasting frequencies’ exclusivity, or protection, will be lifted, resulting in signal interruptions.