SOUTH Africa joins 11 other African nations this week in their failure to switch over from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting in compliance with their obligations as members of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The five that have transitioned successfully are Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania. This information is published on the ITU’s website once countries inform it of their status.
A further 31 African countries are listed as “ongoing”, meaning they have started a phased migration to digital broadcasting.
South Africa is listed as “not started”, along with countries like Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Morocco and Namibia.
As of midnight last night, the ITU is not protecting analogue broadcasting signals from interference by digital broadcasters. This means the reception quality of television and radio broadcasts may deteriorate as our neighbouring countries expand their digital broadcast offerings.
Asking for favours
Tanzania boasts that its coverage area now extends to Kenya, Uganda, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Namibia.
During the past few weeks Minister of Communications Faith Muthambi has visited neighbouring countries to sign memorandums of understanding, basically asking these countries to try to mitigate cross-border frequency spectrum interference. All of these neighbours are ahead of South Africa in the migration process, which shows how far our DTT process has slipped since 2008.
A year ago, following the ill-informed decision to split the former Department of Communications in two, Muthambi fought tooth and nail to get control of the Broadcast Digital Migration (BDM) process from its rightful owner, the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services – who is the executive authority for the relevant entities.
She then delayed, for almost a year, the approval by the technology-bamboozled cabinet of the much-revised BDM policy.
It was immediately criticised by electronics manufacturers and the broadcasting sector as being contradictory and without the necessary safeguards to protect broadcast content.
Broadcaster e.tv is legally challenging the policy because it severely affects its ability to procure and broadcast quality content, jeopardising its financial sustainability as discerning viewers move to pay-TV channels whose satellite transmissions are encrypted.
The challenge is mainly about whether the set-top boxes will be able to receive broadcasts encrypted to prevent piracy of content or whether they will have the most basic on/off switch (mux verification), which certifies a set-top box’s right to connect to the network.
Until this policy challenge is resolved, the locally produced set-top boxes cannot be produced for sale to South African analogue TV set owners.
It also delays the assembly and delivery of the 5 million set-top boxes and antennas that the government is giving to identified poor households.
Muthambi has been at pains to tell South Africans they need not worry about our missed deadline as they will still be able to view programmes from free-to-air broadcasters, such as the SABC and e.tv. What she has neglected to discuss is the negative impact the delay is having on economic and job-creation potential.
The government has given only lip service to the wider issues of:
n Freeing up radio spectrum used by analogue broadcasting for new broadcasters to contribute to fulfilling the constitutional imperative of promoting a diversity of voices, and the Broadcasting Act’s obligation to promote diversity in broadcasting ownership and content;
n Encouraging the development of South African digital programme content to supply the needs of competitive broadcasters and multiple channels to serve all sectors of South African society; and
n Freeing up the spectrum to facilitate nationwide, price-competitive wireless broadband applications and services, so all people in South Africa, irrespective of their geographic location, can take full advantage of the opportunities offered by inclusion in an international knowledge-based society.
Muthambi’s plans for DTT roll-out are hopelessly contradictory. She prioritised the roll-out of free set-top boxes to qualifying poor households in the border areas most vulnerable to spectrum interference from neighbours after today and to areas in the Northern Cape, for example, which are too remote to receive digital TV signals for terrestrial (land-based) transmitters.
Integrity and security
These areas will be serviced by satellite transmitters. Sentech’s terrestrial and satellite transmission network is ready and working. But the set-top boxes receiving satellite broadcasts must be able to receive encrypted signals so they can decrypt programmes to be viewed on analogue TV sets. No satellite operator will accept signals that are not encrypted. Encryption ensures the integrity and security of all transmissions to and from satellites.
This is the reason these direct-to-the-home (DTH) set-top boxes were subject to different tender requirements than the DTT set-top boxes that form the bulk of the free set-top box consignment. So some of the set-top boxes will deal with encrypted signals while most will not. How will the free-to-air broadcasters know which content to encrypt? Will the DTH set-top box recipients receive different (encrypted) programming, or will they be left out altogether? Under the current policy, it will be unrealistic for broadcasters to cater for such a small niche audience.
The SA Bureau of Standards’s technical specifications for the DTH set-top boxes – SANS 1719 – was gazetted only on May 22. Even if the legal challenge to the BDM policy had not stalled the process, these set-top boxes could only have started being produced now and would only be ready for distribution by the end of September at the earliest.
Then there is the issue of how production, delivery and installation of the set-top boxes will be financed. The plan a year ago was to subsidise, on a sliding scale, 6 142 046 set-top boxes to poor households that met certain criteria, such as monthly household income at a maximum of R3 200, proof of ownership of a TV set and a valid TV licence.
Costs have spiralled
At that time the cost estimate for this was R4.33 billion, of which only R2.39 billion had been allocated by the Treasury to be financed from the Universal Service and Access Fund. There was a shortfall of about R1.94 billion. The sliding-scale subsidy scheme of 6 million set-top boxes was unaffordable. Giving away 5 million set-top boxes is now more so.
No one has yet come up with a cost for the full subsidy, decided by the cabinet in March, of the 5 million set-top boxes, antennas and their installation, the marketing, the education programme, or the dual illumination period when analogue signals are phased out at the same time digital transmission is phased in. No one knows where the money will come from.
Attempts to get answers from Muthambi about whether she is negotiating with the Treasury for the requisite funding for the complete digital migration process have been unsuccessful.
The minister, who started a cabinet turf war a year ago for control of the DTT programme, has only R12.225 million in her department’s medium-term expenditure framework budget to manage the migration process.
The DTT programme, on its current trajectory – complicated by legal, funding, production and installation challenges – will not be successfully completed in the two years Muthambi has promised.
She is hopelessly out of her depth with the migration process and has proven to be a major obstacle in its path. page 20
Marian Shinn is the DA’s spokeswoman on telecommunications and postal services