UPGRADE WILL CUT BROADCAST COSTS
"SA is facing a very real chance of a TV blackout," says Sentech executive in the office of the COO, Johan Raath.
Fortunately, government has come to the rescue. The national treasury has agreed to provide the funding necessary for Sentech to build a national digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcast network. Raath estimates the project will cost about R600m – this figure excludes the cost of digital set-top boxes – and will take about three years to complete. Implementation is scheduled to begin later this year, when the first tranche of funding becomes available.
Raath says the upgrade can’t come soon enough. It has become difficult to source the spare parts Sentech needs to maintain its analogue TV network.
DTT will provide a number of benefits for broadcasters and consumers:
- Because it makes more efficient use of the available radio frequency spectrum, it is possible to broadcast as many as eight TV channels in the same frequency it previously took to broadcast just one.
- SA will be able to introduce regional television broadcasts. Already, the SABC has plans to introduce SABC 4 and SABC 5. Later, community broadcasters could begin serving individual cities.
- DTT broadcasts consume much less electricity than analogue signal distribution equipment. This will result in lower operating costs for broadcasters.
- DTT can be used to carry Internet data, along with sound and video. With a wireless connection, such as to Sentech’s MyWireless network, built into subscribers’ set-top boxes, broadcasters could introduce interactive TV services.
"If we do this at a good price then every TV in the country is potentially an Internet access point," says Raath.
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