Digital migration: African countries may not meet deadline

THE Digital Dialogue Conference recently held in Johannesburg, South Africa has shown that African countries have very little chance of meeting the 2015 deadline for migration from the analogue broadcast platform to the digital one.

The conference, held at Johannesburg’s Sandton Convention Centre on   October 11, was organised by pay TV giants, MultiChoice.

By the deadline date, television users will have to acquire the new generation set-top box  (DVB-T decoder) to receive television signals.

While the analogue platform currently in use would have become obsolete, Nigeria is one of the numerous African countries lagging behind in the march towards the migration deadline.

Also, it was submitted that migration, as identified by participants at the conference, offers a variety of benefits, just as failure to meet the deadline will ensure that the benefits, both economic and social, will not be enjoyed.

On offer are advantages like increased spectrum efficiency, enhancement of access by overcoming coverage problems, since it allows hybrid models that are difficult to apply in analogue environment.

Migration will also boost job creation, something many African countries could do with, through the commitment to manufacture Set Top Boxes domestically.