Budget 2023: Much like his counterpart, finance minister Enoch Godongwana is confident government will finalise the years-long delayed digital migration process.
In his 2023 National Budget Speech at Cape Town’s City Hall this afternoon, Godongwana indicated government “will soon switch off the analogue signal and finalise the migration to digital signal”.
“This will unlock the benefits of the spectrum auction and unleash renewed investment in the sector,” he stated, adding the state is introducing new regulations to enable the accelerated rollout of telecoms infrastructure.
After missing the International Telecommunication Union-mandated June 2015 migration deadline, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), which is charged with overseeing the country’s digital migration process, has made numerous attempts to conclude it.
However, litigation and numerous other challenges saw the process being delayed for more than a decade. The blow delivered by the Constitutional Court decision that halted the 30 June 2022 analogue switch-off date delayed the process even further.
Migrating from analogue to digital TV is an important step towards making available the sub-1GB (700MHz-800MHz) radio frequency spectrum bands occupied by the analogue TV signals.
These spectrum bands were licensed during telecoms regulator the Independent Communications Authority of SA’s “historic” spectrum auction in March 2022.
Access to high‐demand spectrum will help mobile operators provide faster and more widespread high-speed data services. On the consumer front, it would mean making affordable data available to firms and households.
For government, the allocation of spectrum has been key to its economic reforms, with the national fiscus benefitting in excess of R14 billion from the proceeds of the auction.
In December, DCDT minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni announced 31 March as the final date for the country’s analogue switch-off.
At the time, she expressed that the new date is an effort to finalise government’s much-delayed broadcasting digital migration programme.
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