South Africa commits to DSO by June 2019
January 25, 2018
By Chris Forrester
The headline should also say ‘again’ such are the frequent promises made by a succession of South African politicians with regards to adopting digital terrestrial TV.
However, this time the country’s Communications Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, is raising the commitment and has told South Africa’s parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications that she has established a “war room” to ensure the June 2019 date is met.
“What we are worried about is to get the nation on board on the project. So, we will announce a start date and an end date for registration, so it can’t continue to be an open ended [project],” the minister stated. “One of the issues we had to [examine] was to put a project plan in place and also put a project office, a boardroom, we call it a war room, on DTT.”
Minister Kubayi-Ngubane added that the benefits of digital transmission were considerable, but her department needed adequate resources and that the June 2019 cut-off date for analogue was mandated by the ITU.