While the fact that SA would not make the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) analogue broadcast switch-off deadline was expected for a long time, it is still a sad day - 17 June 2015 - when we are forced to admit we have failed.
Unfortunately, this is not simply a failure to switch over to digital broadcasting; it is a failure which runs much deeper, and it is one that could have been avoided on many occasions during the past decade. But, alas, for the better part of 10 years, we as a country stood by and watched and listened to government's empty promises, while a slow-motion train wreck happened right before our eyes.
Government's failure to meet the ITU deadline means the so-called digital dividend spectrum bands - scarce spectrum below 800MHz - has not been freed up, preventing access to the Internet by larger parts of the population, lower broadband prices and access to faster connectivity.
Furthermore, our failure to meet the ITU deadline also means South Africans have missed out on opportunities that would have been created by the establishment of an electronics manufacturing industry for the manufacture and distribution of set-top boxes.
This would not only have given local entrepreneurs the chance to establish manufacturing facilities, which, in turn, would have led to job creation (supposedly a high priority for the country's government); this industry would also have spurred a whole downstream industry of support services.
Shifting deadlines
Sadly, though, government's foot-dragging has had the opposite effect on aspiring market entrants - instead of creating opportunities and prosperity, a good few have succumbed along the way, waiting for government to meet the next in a long line of shifting digital migration deadlines.
Congratulations! Talk about planning to fail.
While a tender for the manufacture of set-top boxes had been awarded earlier this year - ludicrously to all 27 bidders - and a digital migration policy was eventually approved by Cabinet, the Department of Communications (DOC) recently revealed digital migration would take another 18 months to complete.
It is rather ironic then that the DOC describes the digital migration project, in a statement ahead of today's missed deadline, as remaining a "top priority for the department as it is important for clearing the spectrum for the delivery of broadband services".
"The Digital Migration Project Management Office is hard at work to ensure that set-top boxes are manufactured and delivered to complete the migration process," the statement adds.
Perhaps this would have been a reassuring sentiment, had it not come from government's propaganda department, headed by communications minister Faith Muthambi - a minister best known for her power struggles and turf wars with her telecommunications and postal services counterpart.
Disruptions
But, perhaps it is the DOC statement's main thrust which is most telling. It reads: "Minister of communications Faith Muthambi is confident that South African television viewers will not face broadcasting disruptions after 17 June 2015, when the International Telecommunication Union ceases to protect analogue users from signal interference."
It adds: "The most significant measure has been engagements that the minister has held with her counterparts in several neighbouring countries. In this respect, the minister has signed agreements of co-operation with Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique. Two countries remaining, namely, Namibia and Zimbabwe, are finalising these agreements of co-operation."
In short, knowing it would fail abysmally to get anywhere near digital migration by the ITU deadline, government has signed a series of bilateral agreements with neighbouring countries to ensure analogue broadcasting signals do not experience interference. Congratulations! Talk about planning to fail.
While SA's so-called digital migration process has been nothing short of a decade-long comedy of errors, it is unlikely any fingers will be pointed at the parties responsible for dropping the ball and stalling the process during all these years.
That's not to say no one will pay for government's failure to do what it promised time and time again. Unfortunately, I suspect the cost of this failure will be most acutely felt by the very people who should have most benefited from digital migration.
Share