The strategy will include government recommendations on subsidising the set-top boxes required to receive digital signals and on whether the boxes would be made in SA or imported<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to continue viewing TV using the current analogue TV sets, the public will be required to use set-top boxes, which convert the transmitted digital signal to analogue,\u201d Deputy Communications Minister Roy Padayachie said yesterday at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation conference in Sandton.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtherwise it will be necessary to acquire digital-enabled TV sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cEfforts should be made to explore developing capacities to manufacture set-top boxes locally to meet the local demand rather than importing them from abroad,\u201d Padayachie said.<\/p>\n
Last year the cabinet approved the strategy to switch on the digital signal from this November. There would then be a \u201cdual illumination\u201d period until the analogue signal was switched off in November 2011. This would be four years ahead of international recommendations.<\/p>\n
Sentech, the state-funded telecoms group responsible for rolling out the project, has said the cost of supplying SA\u2019s 7- million TV viewers now without set-top boxes could be R2,8bn-R4,2bn \u2014 depending on the cost of the boxes.<\/p>\n
SA has 8,2-million TV watching households, 1,2-million of them on MultiChoice\u2019s DStv digital offering.<\/p>\n
Three newly licensed pay-TV operators \u2014 ODM, Telkom Media and MultiChoice, which was operating until now without a licence \u2014 are awaiting a decision on the interoperability of the boxes. This enables multiple digital broadcasters to be received on any set-top box, regardless of who distributed it.<\/p>\n
It is understood that some of the new operators were keen for the boxes to be opened up as this would let them use MultiChoice\u2019s existing network.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice, however, was not as keen as it believed this would make upgrading the boxes\u2019 software difficult.<\/p>\n
It was up to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) regulator to decide whether the boxes could be interoperable.<\/p>\n
Icasa chairman Paris Mashile indicated that interoperability would make sense.<\/p>\n
Introducing \u201ca common box with different encryptions is the most logical thing to do\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is key, from an Icasa point of view, that these boxes are inter-operable.\u201d<\/p>\n