Today, 17th June, is an important deadline in the future of telecommunications globally. It’s the day upon which the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will stop protecting the part of the radio spectrum used internationally for analogue television. When ITU members agreed the deadline back in 2006, the grand vision was that old fashioned analogue broadcasts would be over by now, and all TV viewers – even in developing countries across Africa and the Middle East – would be tuning into a more efficient digital signal with more channels and the capacity to provide high definition content straight to a domestic antenna.
In what was an unsurprising development the Department of Communications confirmed yesterday that South Africa would miss today’s deadline. The final plans for the migration were only published in March, following years of delay, and most experts reckon it will take many years before the switchover is complete.
The switchover date is important for two reasons: firstly, the radio spectrum used for analogue TV signals is planned to be refarmed for fast wireless internet services. Until the migration is complete, mobile operators are hamstrung with limited access to spectrum for getting more South Africans online. Secondly, as international treaties protecting the TV signal have now expired, there’s the chance of interference from neighbouring countries who have already started using those frequencies for broadband.
Communications minister Faith Muthambi, however, says that she is confident that no South African television viewers will face broadcasting disruptions. In a media statement, she says that she has recently undertaken a number of measures to mitigate against such risk including signing agreements of cooperation with neighbouring countries that include Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique.
Analyst Steven Ambrose of Strategy Worx says that the problem isn’t just about interference. Replacing analogue infrastructure as it fails will be costly and – ultimately – pointless since the technology is obsolete. That could lead to signal loss in any area, combined with the economic costs and missed opportunities.
“The implications of missing this deadline are far deeper,” Ambrose says, “We are completely out of sync with the rest of the more advanced world…we have now further delayed the release of high demand spectrum and that is a huge problem because again most of the developed world are using the digital dividend spectrum to deliver high speed broadband.
“South Africa is begging our neighbours not to interfere with our analogue signal because we don’t have any legal protection,” he continues.
Ambrose adds that the excessive cost of maintaining obsolete analogue infrastructure over the next few years will affect our country’s ability to compete on successfully on a global scale.
Minister Muthambi said during her budget speech last month that we should be able to make the switch within two years. Ambrose believes this is possible if everything is done right from here onwards he adds it could take up to four years to complete.
After the latest guidelines for the digital switchover were issued in March, broadcaster etv said that it would take the government to court over the issue of mandatory encryption in set-top boxes. This has been a sticking point between broadcasters who want to be able to charge for extra services beyond free-to-view without requiring viewers to upgrade their hardware, and service providers like Multichoice which current has an effective monopoly on pay-as-you-view TV.
Ambrose dismissed poor of funding as reason for the delay and puts the blame for the neverending legal challenges squarely on government.
“That (the court challenges) was as a consequences of lack of clarity, lack of government direction and lack of intervention by government organizations such as Icasa. If the government has taken a clear lead and actually followed through on commitments when they originally made them in 2006 we would not be in this situation…they have completely and utterly not delivered.”
The Ministry on the other hand has reiterated its commitment to the Digital Migration project and says its Digital Migration Project Management Office is hard at work to ensure that set-top boxes are manufactured and delivered in order to complete the migration process. It is clear that while your television viewing for example will not be affected immediately, this development has serious implications for our competitiveness globally in the digital economy and in the SADC region.
[Image by CC 3.0/Hydrargyrum]
