Disingenuous terrestrial TV

The Department of Communications' (DOC's) handling of digital terrestrial TV (DTTV) migration has been disingenuous, muddled and downright incompetent. If it had deliberately set out to sabotage the process, it could not have done a better job.

Why the country needs to migrate from an aging analogue broadcast TV system is well established. Reasons vary from economics, to the efficient use of spectrum and the fact that the whole broadcast infrastructure needs to be recapitalised. Furthermore, it is one of the guarantees the country has signed as a condition of hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

The issue is not new, or a recent development. Arguably, it has been an item of discussion for the past eight years. This was when the future of national signal distributor Sentech was being examined and plans were put in place that part of its revenue from broadcasters would be to save up for the day when the renewal of the broadcast system had to take place. In 2006, the regulator, ICASA, finalised the frequency plan.

Digital migration has also been a topic for the international community for many years. The International Telecommunications Union and the World Radio Congress have had a number of conferences and published numerous discussion documents about it. It was from these that SA was given the migration window, from 1 November 2008 until 1 November 2013, to complete its transition.

Apart from a draft policy published in March last year, it seems as though it was put into a desk drawer and largely ignored.

Paul Vecchiatto, Cape Town correspondent, ITWeb

In November 2006, communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and her director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole were presented with the final draft of a document titled: "The Proposed Switchover from Analogue Broadcasting to Digital Broadcasting in South Africa".

The Digital Migration Working Group, a multidisciplinary and sector-wide body, established by the minister with the aim of providing recommendations on specific terms of reference set by the DOC, facilitated this report. Contributors to the report included public and private broadcasters, the DOC itself, and Sentech. While the report did not necessarily encompass all the positions of all the participants, it went a long way to establish a foundation on which to build a successful migration strategy.

So what has happened to the report and its recommendations? Apart from a draft policy published in March last year, it seems as though it was put into a desk drawer and largely ignored.

In her 2007 budget speech, Matsepe-Casaburri stated that the digital migration strategy would be published in June of that year. This did not happen. Earlier this month, in Parliament, she said it would be published the following week, and the postponement was because the country needed, either some input, or some kind of approval, from the World Radio Congress that was held in October.

The policy is still not published and Shope-Mafole told Parliament during her department's strategy presentation that this was because she was still awaiting input from Sentech and Orbicom on an issue. However, this was a disingenuous answer, as the issue, which concerns the roll-out of the digital video broadband-handheld system, the system that would transmit TV signals to cellphones, was only asked of the two parties a couple of days before and they had already decided not to cooperate with each other.

The body that should be guiding the country through this difficult time, the "Digital Dzonga", which should have a staff of about 40 people, still only has one lonely chairman.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications has been asking questions, and comments made by its chairman, Ismail Vadi, and other members of the ANC indicate they are not happy by a long shot. This culminated with the committee giving DOC officials the proverbial dressing down during a presentation in February.

And now without an overall policy having being published, the DOC, on 17 March, issued two tenders. One is to develop a so-called "D-Book" that goes into the nitty-gritty of technical standards needed for DTTV. The other calls for the development of a set-top box manufacturing strategy for the country, when we do not have the ability to manufacture the chip sets needed and probably never will.

Furthermore, no awareness campaign has started to educate the general public about what the migration means to them in terms of receiving a signal or of the financial implications.

The whole issue smacks of a schoolboy who hasn't done his homework and is now sitting on the bus asking his friends for answers to the questions the teacher has set. In other words, if failure beckons, it is because of incompetence, carelessness and a woeful disregard of accountability.