The department of communications says it has met for a second time with South African broadcasters, this time to review the options available to speed up the implementation of South Africa's long-stalled switch-over to digital terrestrial television (DTT) through a process known as digital migration.
The department of communications is currently embroiled in a highly contentious court spat with the free-to-air broadcaster e.tv. The South Gauteng High Court ruled that South African broadcasters lik e.tv themselves have the right to control the conditional access (CA) mechanism which will be built into set-top boxes (STB's) - the digital decoders which South Africans will need to buy for hundreds of rands in order to view digital TV signals in the country in the future.
The department of communications appealed the ruling and the court case is dragging on together with several other issues surrounding DTT in South Africa. The country has become the laughing stock in digital migration for television as South Africa keeps getting passed by one African country after the other switching to digital television broadcasts.
The department of communications says it had "a meaningful engagement" with the SABC, e.tv and other free-to-air broadcasters following the first meeting on 14 January which was about the goverment's stance on the encoding system and it's control which will be placed in the STB's.
The government will be subsidising the STB's but only for the so-called "poorest of the poor" households in a scheme which has so far not yet been announced publicly and with nothing spelled out exactly how it will work and who will qualify. The South African Post Office will be used to distribute STB's, although the Podt Office told parliament at the end of 2012 that it doesn't have enough branch capacity and capacity in certain rural areas.
According to the department of communications, "broadcasters made their independent recommendations" and the department is now "reviewing all the input and will decide on the way forward". The department say it is "pleased with the level of engagement from all the parties and the importance they attached to ensuring that DTT avoids unnecessary delays".
