Digital TV decoder drama continues
The Minister of Communications, Dina Pule, must state clearly and unambiguously whether foreign-made set-top boxes (STBs) or digital converters can be imported to and sold in South Africa. So wrote Butch Steyn, shadow deputy minister of communications, on the DA website.
These STBs will be required to receive the new digital terrestrial television (DTT) signal that’s scheduled to be switched on in Q3 2012.
An unsubsidised STB is expected to cost about R700 at retail.
Steyn said that he has written to the minister asking her to clarify comments she made during a Sunday Live interview on SABC 1, in which she indicated that STBs or digital converters manufactured outside South Africa would be allowed onto the local market.
“If so, the minister needs to state clearly whether these imported devices will have to conform to the same standards and offer the same facilities as those being prescribed under the contentious STB Manufacturing Sector Development Strategy that was approved by Cabinet in March 2012,” Steyn said.
Steyn said that locally manufactured STBs made to the approved specifications will not readily find export markets because they lack the ability to use TVs as screens that can connect to the Internet.
Another term used for this in industry is a “return path.”
The price-competitiveness of locally made products was another concern, Steyn said.
According to Steyn, the strategy has attracted industry criticism as the unnecessarily complex STBs produced will cost consumers twice that of an imported simple digital converter.
“The Minister’s lack of clarity on the import of STBs or digital converters is the latest in a litany of uncertainties about the wisdom and affordability of government’s STB strategy,” Steyn wrote.
Locally made STBs will not be ready for the market before mid–2013, about 9 months after the switchover to digital TV begins, Steyn said.
“The Portfolio Committee on Communications has already made a decision that stakeholders in the STB programme must come before the committee to explain the muddled state of affairs around STBs,” Steyn said.
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