Analogue switch-off in all nine provinces by end of January as digital migration is accelerated

22nd October 2021

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

South Africa’s long-delayed transition from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (TV), under the broadcasting digital migration (BDM) programme, has been accelerated, with the ambition of concluding the analogue switch-off (ASO) across all nine provinces by the end of January.

Following a mandate by President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his 2021 State of the Nation Address, to conclude the programme by March 2022, Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni says the revised integrated ASO Implementation Plan was approved by Cabinet at the end of September.

The new plan, which takes a collaborative approach to fast-tracking the finalisation of the migration of the entire country from analogue to digital platforms, moves the implementation of the programme from a staggered provincial approach to a consolidated national approach, where set-top box (STB) installations and the ASO will happen simultaneously in all the nine provinces of South Africa.

The ASO in the Free State, where only one site is still to be switched off, will be completed by the end of October, in the Northern Cape, with 11 remaining sites, by the middle to the end of November and in the North West, with 15 remaining sites, by the first week of December.

In Mpumalanga and Limpopo, the ASO will be concluded by the end of December, while the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng will switch off by the end of January.

“To ensure that this plan is executed, I have established a project steering committee which is constituted by CEOs and technology executives of all affected and participating stakeholders. I have also appointed a project manager to oversee the digital migration and ASO process,” Ntshavheni says.

Chaired by Ntshavheni, the steering committee meets on a fortnightly basis and reports to Cabinet on a monthly basis, with updates to the public on the progress made expected to happen at least once a month.

The migration will also unlock the high demand spectrum required for South Africa’s fifth-generation ambitions.

The years-delayed BDM programme formed part of the basis for telecommunication giant Telkom’s legal action against the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) over the invitations to apply (ITAs) for the auction process aimed at releasing the much needed spectrum.

In December 2020, Telkom took to the courts to have Icasa’s spectrum licensing process suspended on the basis that the respective ITAs were fundamentally flawed by including the 700 MHz and 800 MHz frequency bands, which are not available for use and are not likely to be available for use for a long period after the auction, besides other reasons.

Icasa was due to start the spectrum auctioning phase, which included the bidder seminar, the mock auction and the actual auction, at the end of March this year, after issuing the ITAs for the International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) spectrum and the Wireless Open Access Network on October 2, 2020.

Icasa, at the beginning of this month, published a new timeline for the start of the auction of the high demand spectrum from March 1, 2022, with a revised ITA for the IMT spectrum scheduled for publication by December 10, 2021.

The updated timeline for the auction of the long-awaited spectrum follows the consent order granted by the North Gauteng High Court on September 15, 2021, which ended the litigation instituted against the authority by Telkom and e.tv.

Meanwhile, South Africa, as a Region 1 member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), missed the digital migration deadline of June 2015.

“As country, we initially aimed to complete the migration process in 2011 but the programme suffered serious setbacks during the technology negotiation processes. At this point, we remained with the ITU set date for Region 1 of June 2015; however, the country also missed this date and further did not seek exemption at the 2015 World Radiocommunications Conference, and thus South Africa did not qualify for another extension after missing the June 2015 migration deadline,” Ntshavheni explains.

However, she assures that significant progress has been made in migrating some parts of the country from analogue to digital platforms.

Since the inception of the BDM programme, 556 954 of the current total of 1.18-million registered beneficiary households, which are households earning a salary of less than R3 500 that government committed to assisting with the installation of STBs to ensure universal migration, have been migrated.

“The process of registering beneficiary households to be supported started in 2015 and to date 1.18-million qualifying households have been registered out of the estimated 3.75-million qualifying households,” Ntshavheni comments.

Further, Cabinet approved the adoption of a managed integrated model that actively involves all broadcast media players to contribute to ramping up the STB installation capacity through the use of their boxes to ensure rapid reach.

Nearly 10.5-million TV-owning households, out of just over 14-million, have self-migrated through private satellite boxes, including DStv with 7.8-million households, OpenViewHD with 2.3-million households and StarSat with 450 000.

To date, Sentech has been able to switch off all 84 Multichoice analogue transmission sites, 105 out of 288 SABC analogue transmission sites and four of the 95 e.tv analogue transmission sites.

“Given the low numbers of registered beneficiary households, Cabinet approved a last call for registration with a cutoff date of October 31, 2021,” she adds.

The qualifying households who register on or before October 31 will be connected before the ASO, while households registering after the cutoff date will only be connected within three to six months after the ASO.

“We call upon all eligible households to register at the nearest post office on or before October 31 to receive government assistance for your STB installation,” Ntshavheni says.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION