 |
| SABC Head Quarters, Auckland Park. |
In 2006, the ITU announced that after 2015 it will not support the protection of analogue technology for broadcast purposes which meant that from that point the race for migration towards digital technologies was on. In 2008 the South African government through the Department of Communication (DoC) approved a digital migration policy and the DoC immediately set about putting together its own migration plan. According to that plan, South Africa was set to commence the migration by the end of 2011. The national broadcaster, the SABC still uses the archaic analogue technology for it's television signal transmission and it faces the biggest test among all the other broadcasters in South Africa, as this relates to digital migration.
With less than two months left before the end of 2011, South Africa is nowhere near ready to commence the migration process, thanks to a number of stumbling blocks, least among them the delays by government in reaching a decision on the preferred digital standard. It was only in January of 2011 that the DoC announced that DVB-T2 will be the digital standard that South Africa will adopt. Making this announcement only in January when the migration was due to commence before the end of the year, was a clear sign that South Africa would hopelessly miss its own self-imposed commencement timeline. Now the end of 2013 is the new timeline to commence digital migration. This would leave South Africa with only two years to complete the migration before the 2015 deadlines set by the ITU. South Africa cannot afford to miss the 2015 deadline and the DoC must pull out all stops to ensure compliance.
Our Politicians must demonstrate some will.
No comments:
Post a Comment