The state-owned telecoms infrastructure provider’s fibre optic cable network now covered about 12,250km country-wide, he told a media briefing at Parliament in his capacity as chairman of the infrastructure development cluster of ministries.<\/p>\n
This also enabled South Africa to extend connectivity to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to countries such as Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.<\/p>\n
Ndebele said the 2010 legacy implementation plan, developed in June 2010, was ready for implementation during February and March this year.<\/p>\n
This included the 2010 Fifa World Cup equipment that would be redeployed to two host cities — Cape Town and Tshwane.<\/p>\n
Telkom would also redeploy some of the equipment to exchanges in rural areas and use some of the remaining funds to connect the remaining 125 Dinaledi schools.<\/p>\n
Implementation of the project would roll over into April and May.<\/p>\n
On digital terrestrial television (DTT), Ndebele said Cabinet recently endorsed a decision by SADC to adopt the European second-generation digital video broadcasting (DVB-T2) technology standard for implementing the digital migration process.<\/p>\n
Cabinet further adopted December 2013 as the switch-off date of the analogue signal to the digital signal.<\/p>\n
This process would contribute to government’s job creation programme in manufacturing, packaging, distribution, installation, maintenance and content production, he said.<\/p>\n
The migration process would result in the creation of more TV channels, therefore increasing the demand for more content.<\/p>\n
Government intended using the migration process as a catalyst for the resuscitation of the electronics manufacturing industry and to create more opportunities for the content production industry, Ndebele said.<\/p>\n