By Mark van der Velden
A bureaucratic hiatus is stalling plans to bring digitally interactive pay-TV broadcasts to South Africa, while Namibia already enjoys this cutting-edge technology.
The technology is proven also for South Africa, but there is no regulatory framework yet to run things, says broadcast carrier MultiChoice Africa's chief technology officer Gerdus van Eeden.
He says the customers are there, and capital is available.
The policy vacuum is holding up plans to migrate - for a start - about 260 000 dishless but decoded subscriber households from wobbly old analogue technology to the brave new world of interactive surface digital transmission.
Regulators and advisers in South Africa have been considering reports on "policy inclusion" of digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) of TV signals since at least 2001. Sector players are hoping for some developments this year as pressure for a policy mounts.
This South African bureaucratic hiatus was discussed in neighbouring Namibia last weekend when MultiChoice, in a sub-Saharan Africa "first," celebrated the successful migration from analogue to digital of every one of its 3 000 terrestrial subscribers in Windhoek.
"Namibia has one of the most enabling and progressive regulatory environments in Africa," MultiChoice's Namibian manager Kobus Bezuidenhout pointedly told VIP guests flown in from South Africa for the launch.
Among them were South Africa's broadcast regulatory chief, Mandla Langa of the Independent Communications Authority (Icasa), fellow councillors and members of parliament's communications committee.
And in his amiable welcome, Namibian minister of information and broadcasting, Nangolo Mbumba, emphasised that his country - population under two million, compared with South Africa's 45-plus - was also running out of frequencies.
He praised MultiChoice for choosing Namibia to lead the broadcasting revolution in Africa.
"The Namibian Communications Commission welcomes this new technology which allows the use of six channels on one frequency... putting Windhoek subscribers at the cutting edge of television innovation," he said.
In his speech, MultiChoice South Africa's chief executive, Nolo Letolo, said: "Television is about to undergo its most profound revolution to date.
"The switch from analogue to digital television will transform the domestic TV set into a gateway to the Information Society."
Broadcasting was converging with telecommunications and computing, new operators would enter the business and new regulatory models would evolve in response to the multi-channel, multi-platform universe.
"It's the way that all programmes will be broadcast in the future."
Britain was first to launch a digital terrestrial service and Italy had one of the most ambitious plans for digital in Europe.
"Italy is already heading for analogue switch-off," Letele noted.
Analogue switch-off coming in Europe? When South Africa has not yet even worked out where to start with digital?
This caused some discussion among the guests as they were ferried in 4x4 vehicles to the transmission tower to see for themselves just how well DTT works.
Back in Johannesburg, it is clear that until there is a policy, meeting the needs of all "stakeholders," the introduction of DTT for locals who either dislike or cannot afford a satellite dish - and the full DSTV bouquet's cost - stays firmly under officialdom's "pause" button.
Addressing a small Windhoek workshop of journalists also flown in to see the Namibian project, Van Eeden refers to two brief but successful technical trials conducted by signal providers Sentech and Orbicom in Johannesburg in 2001 and 2002.
These showed that the technology - what Windhoek's subscribers now have in new, exchanged decoders provided free of charge - would work in South Africa.
However, regulators refused to extend the trial runs to bring in commercial feasibility and customer receptiveness. Van Eeden chooses not to elaborate on why.
"And then the Namibian opportunity arose. We started last year (2004) in March and despite infrastructural delays, which took some months to resolve, it's all working now."
It emerges that it was out-going President Sam Nujoma's security staff who were worried that the ageing transmission tower overlooked the grand new R500 million presidential state house project.
"Find another hill; move the tower," the spooks said in a sudden, note one day while technicians were busy.
Windhoek's encircling hills offer a number of other possible sites, but none so good, as near and as high and as available as the one looking down on the crane over the presidential construction site.
Delicate negotiations bringing in Namibia's NBC state broadcaster, which uses most of the tower, and government's own telecommunications department, which owns the tower, agreed on added security measures.
Namibia's transition to digital was back on track.
Looking at the site with its 360-degree view of the city, it seems harassed technicians used the opportunity to layer more electrified and razor-wire walls to fend off crafty baboons, which have damaged cable connections worth millions.
"We've got the edge on the baboons - for now - but they're bloody smart," a weathered technician said.
Overall, it is clear that analogue N essentially still the crackly stuff first used on trans-Atlantic morse-radio over 100 years ago - is on its way out.
Van Eeden notes that the makers of the key analogue programming chips for those 260 000 decoders in South African living rooms have drawn a line in the sand.
"These chips don't last forever (and) they just won't be making more," he says.
But South Africa could catch up quickly.
Asked to consider the future, he confirms his optimism that "dishless pay-TV viewers," at least, will be watching soccer's 2010 World Cup final beamed in digital brilliance - maybe even interactively - from local stadiums.
"That is a powerful driver, a deadline for us all in South Africa... to get it together digitally for our soccer World Cup in 2010," says Van Eeden.
Aynon Doyle, Icasa's senior manager of policy development and research, said a process involving the International Telecommunication Union was underway to put together a digital plan for Africa.
Icasa as well as the department of communications formed part of this.
"The department is preparing a national strategy - mainly because of the impact it will have - South Africa wants to migrate the whole country, the public broadcaster and commercial broadcasters, and this is huge process, that why we are taking our time.
"Essentially it involves a switch off date where government will have to set a switch off date."
Doyle said a conversion would have a tremendous social and economic impact on South Africa. Once there was a change to digital, South Africa will not be able to receive digital transmission with an analogue television set.
A migration to this would take between ten to 15 years.
"Although the industry is ready, consumers are basically not ready yet," Doyle said. - Sapa
A bureaucratic hiatus is stalling plans to bring digitally interactive pay-TV broadcasts to South Africa, while Namibia already enjoys this cutting-edge technology.
The technology is proven also for South Africa, but there is no regulatory framework yet to run things, says broadcast carrier MultiChoice Africa's chief technology officer Gerdus van Eeden.
He says the customers are there, and capital is available.
The policy vacuum is holding up plans to migrate - for a start - about 260 000 dishless but decoded subscriber households from wobbly old analogue technology to the brave new world of interactive surface digital transmission.
Regulators and advisers in South Africa have been considering reports on "policy inclusion" of digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) of TV signals since at least 2001. Sector players are hoping for some developments this year as pressure for a policy mounts.
This South African bureaucratic hiatus was discussed in neighbouring Namibia last weekend when MultiChoice, in a sub-Saharan Africa "first," celebrated the successful migration from analogue to digital of every one of its 3 000 terrestrial subscribers in Windhoek.
"Namibia has one of the most enabling and progressive regulatory environments in Africa," MultiChoice's Namibian manager Kobus Bezuidenhout pointedly told VIP guests flown in from South Africa for the launch.
Among them were South Africa's broadcast regulatory chief, Mandla Langa of the Independent Communications Authority (Icasa), fellow councillors and members of parliament's communications committee.
And in his amiable welcome, Namibian minister of information and broadcasting, Nangolo Mbumba, emphasised that his country - population under two million, compared with South Africa's 45-plus - was also running out of frequencies.
He praised MultiChoice for choosing Namibia to lead the broadcasting revolution in Africa.
"The Namibian Communications Commission welcomes this new technology which allows the use of six channels on one frequency... putting Windhoek subscribers at the cutting edge of television innovation," he said.
In his speech, MultiChoice South Africa's chief executive, Nolo Letolo, said: "Television is about to undergo its most profound revolution to date.
"The switch from analogue to digital television will transform the domestic TV set into a gateway to the Information Society."
Broadcasting was converging with telecommunications and computing, new operators would enter the business and new regulatory models would evolve in response to the multi-channel, multi-platform universe.
"It's the way that all programmes will be broadcast in the future."
Britain was first to launch a digital terrestrial service and Italy had one of the most ambitious plans for digital in Europe.
"Italy is already heading for analogue switch-off," Letele noted.
Analogue switch-off coming in Europe? When South Africa has not yet even worked out where to start with digital?
This caused some discussion among the guests as they were ferried in 4x4 vehicles to the transmission tower to see for themselves just how well DTT works.
Back in Johannesburg, it is clear that until there is a policy, meeting the needs of all "stakeholders," the introduction of DTT for locals who either dislike or cannot afford a satellite dish - and the full DSTV bouquet's cost - stays firmly under officialdom's "pause" button.
Addressing a small Windhoek workshop of journalists also flown in to see the Namibian project, Van Eeden refers to two brief but successful technical trials conducted by signal providers Sentech and Orbicom in Johannesburg in 2001 and 2002.
These showed that the technology - what Windhoek's subscribers now have in new, exchanged decoders provided free of charge - would work in South Africa.
However, regulators refused to extend the trial runs to bring in commercial feasibility and customer receptiveness. Van Eeden chooses not to elaborate on why.
"And then the Namibian opportunity arose. We started last year (2004) in March and despite infrastructural delays, which took some months to resolve, it's all working now."
It emerges that it was out-going President Sam Nujoma's security staff who were worried that the ageing transmission tower overlooked the grand new R500 million presidential state house project.
"Find another hill; move the tower," the spooks said in a sudden, note one day while technicians were busy.
Windhoek's encircling hills offer a number of other possible sites, but none so good, as near and as high and as available as the one looking down on the crane over the presidential construction site.
Delicate negotiations bringing in Namibia's NBC state broadcaster, which uses most of the tower, and government's own telecommunications department, which owns the tower, agreed on added security measures.
Namibia's transition to digital was back on track.
Looking at the site with its 360-degree view of the city, it seems harassed technicians used the opportunity to layer more electrified and razor-wire walls to fend off crafty baboons, which have damaged cable connections worth millions.
"We've got the edge on the baboons - for now - but they're bloody smart," a weathered technician said.
Overall, it is clear that analogue N essentially still the crackly stuff first used on trans-Atlantic morse-radio over 100 years ago - is on its way out.
Van Eeden notes that the makers of the key analogue programming chips for those 260 000 decoders in South African living rooms have drawn a line in the sand.
"These chips don't last forever (and) they just won't be making more," he says.
But South Africa could catch up quickly.
Asked to consider the future, he confirms his optimism that "dishless pay-TV viewers," at least, will be watching soccer's 2010 World Cup final beamed in digital brilliance - maybe even interactively - from local stadiums.
"That is a powerful driver, a deadline for us all in South Africa... to get it together digitally for our soccer World Cup in 2010," says Van Eeden.
Aynon Doyle, Icasa's senior manager of policy development and research, said a process involving the International Telecommunication Union was underway to put together a digital plan for Africa.
Icasa as well as the department of communications formed part of this.
"The department is preparing a national strategy - mainly because of the impact it will have - South Africa wants to migrate the whole country, the public broadcaster and commercial broadcasters, and this is huge process, that why we are taking our time.
"Essentially it involves a switch off date where government will have to set a switch off date."
Doyle said a conversion would have a tremendous social and economic impact on South Africa. Once there was a change to digital, South Africa will not be able to receive digital transmission with an analogue television set.
A migration to this would take between ten to 15 years.
"Although the industry is ready, consumers are basically not ready yet," Doyle said. - Sapa
