Signal distributor Sentech has failed to reached agreement on tariffs for digital terrestrial television (DTT) with South Africa's TV broadcasters.

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The parastatal signal distributor Sentech has not yet reached - and should already have done so - an agreement on tariffs for digital terrestrial television (DTT) with all of South Africa's broadcasters, prompting South Africa's new minister of communications Faith Muthambi to tell Sentech to do so urgently.

"Sentech has not yet reached agreement on the DTT tariffs with all the broadcasters," Faith Muthambi told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Friday. "We feel this is a matter that needs to be expedited as a matter or urgency".

"Many citizens in South Africa still do no have access to television and radio.This matter shall be noted and dealth with. The matter is between Sentech and the SABC," said Faith Muthambi.

Setumo Mohapi, Sentech CEO, told parliament that enhancing the reach of its analogue signal reach is no longer a core priority of the signal distributor since it is now focusing on building its digital terrestrial  coverage.

"We have this analogue networks that we don't want to put money into them as much as possible, but we want to keep the services up," said Setumo Mohapi. "So if we can avoid putting money into them we would because we're going to switch them off".

Setumo Mohapi said Sentech is aware that many South Africans still do not have universal access to television and radio in the country.

"We work with our broadcasters to push for affordable universal access. We are aware of the socio-political context that there are still many places where people still currently do not have television, still do not have the full scope of radio services".

Signal distributor Sentech warns about 'serious financial risks' for Sentech, entire SA telecom industry should start of DTT go beyond 2014.

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The South African parastatal signal distributor is warning about "serious financial risks" for Sentech and the entire South African telecommunications and TV broadcasting industry should the start of digital terrestrial television (DTT) and introduction of dual illumination be delayed beyond 2014.

Long-delayed and the laughing stock of the African continent and the world, South Africa's TV industry is still to start the actual commercial switch-on from analogue to digital terrestrial television, a process known as digital migration.

South African broadcasters will have to broadcast both their current TV channels' analogue signals, as well as parallel versions of those channels - a process known as dual illumination.

In addition that, e.tv, the SABC and M-Net will all start their own collections of digital TV channels and broadcasting those signals too.

Meanwhile TV viewers will have to buy expensive set-top boxes (STB's) of around R800 and in several cases also new antennas, to keep watching and getting access to public, free-to-air (FTA) television.

This affects at least 8 million South African TV households who are not satellite TV owners nor satellite pay-TV subscribers and who will have to buy a STB to keep watching the free public access television they have always watched.

In addition the department of communication wants an encrypted system, called Conditional Access (CA) built-into these STBs (and which the majority of South African broadcasters are opposing). This is additional proprietary software enabling boxes to be switched off in order to force local STB manufacturing, as well as using the process of digital migration as a job creation vehicle.

In the strategic plan that Sentech CEO Setumo Mohapi presented to parliament on Friday for the next three years starting with the new financial year, he said "the sense for everybody is that there are these real costs of any kind of delays [with DTT]".

Sentech has revised its DTT network coverage targets. The migration target for the digital terrestrial network is 84% for population coverage and 57.95% for geographical coverage. The network rollout will be completed by 31 March 2015.

"We have these analogue networks that we don't want to put money into them as much as possible but we want to keep the services up. So if we can avoid putting money into them we do because we're going to switch them off," said Setumo Mohapi.

Icasa tells parliament: Perhaps community TV stations in South Africa should be converted to provincial TV broadcasters to help pay for DTT.

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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) told parliament that community television stations in South Africa should possibly be converted to provincial TV stations so that they can help pay, help lower, and help offset the cost of digital broadcasting when South Africa eventually switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting.

Icasa which regulates broadcasting in South Africa, is raising the option of changing the community TV licenses issued to the growing number of community TV stations in South Africa to provincial TV licenses.

With a bigger footprint, and broadcasting to a bigger audience across an entire province instead of a city, a community TV station will get more viewers, higher ratings and more advertising and sponsorship income.

Icasa reasons that these provincial TV stations will then have to pay more and contribute more to the overall cost of broadcasting signal distribution in South Africa.

In terms of South Africa's migration from analogue television to digital terrestrial television (DTT), a process known as digital migration, Pakamile Pongwana said it is expensive and that "more broadcasting entities" are needed to help pay for the infrastructure being set up for digital terrestrial television.

Icasa has had discussions with Sentech, the parastatal broadcast signal distributor, about the DTT rate card because the prices that will be charged to broadcasters for making their digital TV channel signals available are costly.

"It is costly. Even Sentech has indicated that it is costly, but says it is because they're forced to distribute their cost among a few entities".

"If we licence more entities in free-to-air (FTA) TV broadcasters then there's more entities who can share the cost," said Pakamile Pongwana.

"Some possibilities is that there are TV channels available in certain provinces. Perhaps we need to licence at provincial level. Perhaps we need to make sure that there's free-to-air TV broadcasters at provincial level. And even consider converting community TV stations to provincial licenses," said Pakamile Pongwana.

"Then Sentech has got a huge number of entities that they are able to charge for the infrastructure that they've rolled out".

"We provide signal distribution services to most of the community TV broadcasters in South Africa. We understand their problems," Setumo Mohapi, Sentech CEO, told parliament on Friday.

"We understand the sensitivity of the signal distribution costs to the cost of operating their services. We have previously reduced our tariffs. But we understand that that might not be enough".