The extensive compliance processes instilled to regulate the manufacturing of the set-top boxes (STBs) required for South Africa’s migration to digital terrestrial television (DTT) have emerged as a serious weakness as industry gears up for the imminent and long-awaited launch.

Currently, STBs are required to undergo three compliance processes undertaken by the country’s communications regulator Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) and the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) before distribution, explained South African Communications Forum (SACF) executive director Loren Braithwaite-Kabosha.

Speaking to Engineering News Online at the sidelines of a SACF-hosted DTT readiness workshop in Pretoria this week, she explained that it could take up to two months for manufacturers to undergo all three compliance check processes and that streamlining the three would considerably shorten the time-to-market for the decoders.

NRCS, under the ambit of the Department of Trade and Industry, is a public entity responsible for the administration of technical regulations, including compulsory specifications based on standards protecting human health and safety and the environment.

The SABS, which published the decoder’s SANS 862:2012 standard, was mandated to develop, promote and maintain South African National Standards, while promoting the quality of commodities, products and services, and rendering conformity assessment services.

Braithwaite-Kabosha said the parties had agreed to investigate ways of streamlining the three processes after several complaints from industry players emerged at the workshop.

The SACF workshop aimed to determine the current compliance of STBs, assess the industry’s strengths and weaknesses, test the readiness of the sector, align preparations and close the gaps for a successful roll-out of the DTT platform.

“The workshop highlighted the urgency of the different government regulators and standards bodies streamlining the processes for [STB] approval and compliance,” explained SACF industrial development working group chairperson Muzi Makheye.

STBs have long been the centre of the delays in South Africa’s progression of DTT, with a drawn-out debate over the control systems of the decoders not yet put to bed, despite Cabinet in December opting for the nonmandatory use of a control system – in nonsubsidised units – that would be installed in the STBs.

The SACF 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 had stressed that any more delays would lead to further losses.