The Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has ruled out the Communications Ministry’s proposed conditional access for free-to-air television in the country.
The Authority has subsequently published a revised standard that is in line with the 1992 Constitution.
Ghana Independent Broadcaster Association (GIBA), that has been at the forefront of the fight against the conditional access, has welcomed the new standards which make conditional access non-mandatory.
GIBA had always argued that the attempt by the Ministry to place a conditional access system on free-to-air Digital Terrestrial Television and Direct-To-Home receivers, was against the licensing conditions of free-to-air TV operators, counterproductive to their business and also threatens to shortchange greater majority of Ghanaians.
The Ministry argued strongly that conditional access was a mechanism that was going to help government collect TV license fees effectively but GSA thinks otherwise and has therefore outlawed it.
Below is the full statement from GIBA:
Press
Statement On The Revised Minimum Specification On DTT And DTH Receivers
Which Rules Out Mandatory Encryption Of Free-To-Air Television Through A
Conditional Access System
The
Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) has published a revised standard on
Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and Direct-To-Home (DTH) Receivers
which makes Conditional Access System (CAS) non-mandatory for
Free-To-Air Receivers. This will mean television broadcasters who have
been authorised by the National Communications Authority (NCA) to
operate in the Free-To-Air (FTA) category can continue to reach the
general public without viewership restriction as required by the terms
of their authorisation, which is consistent with the provisions of the
1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, regarding media freedoms,
human rights and the individual rights to information.
In the earlier press statement published in the Daily Graphic of 28th
May 2019, GIBA raised concerns about the Ministry of Communications
(MoC)’s move to introduce a mandatory encryption of Free-To-Air
television by means of a conditional access module for the purpose of
collecting TV licence fees. This was a departure from the original draft
policy which did not include a CAS. The concerns stemmed from the
revision of the draft policy to the effect that the existing Ghana
Standard on digital television receivers for Free-To-Air would be
revised to include conditional access among other new features. For
example, paragraph 5.4 of the policy indicated that even digital
television sets already in Ghanaian homes and receiving digital channels
cannot continue to receive signals from the DTT platform unless a
Conditional Access (CA) embedded Set-Top-Box (STB) prescribed by the
Ministry of Communications is acquired in addition.
The
MoC did not countenance the legitimate concerns of the main industry
stakeholder – GIBA, but proceeded to request the amendment of the
previous standard (GS1099: 2014) to include a mandatory CA feature by
its communication to the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) which was
referred to the GSA Technical Committee on Telecommunications and ICT
Equipment Standards (TC 24) for consideration. It would be recalled that
the MoC through the NCA published a notice in the Daily Graphic of 1st and 2nd
April 2019 suspending the DTT conformance certification process to make
way for the modification of the minimum specification (Conformance
Regime) which was withdrawn by the same publication. The publication
also placed a ban on the manufacture, sale, purchase and promotion of
DTT Receivers already certified in conformity with the withdrawn
specification. This publication which caused an uproar in the television
industries amidst some legal challenges was eventually modified by
means of an addendum allowing existing DTT operations to continue until
another specification was adopted.
After
several weeks of deliberation by the Technical Committee, the GSA
globally published its report for public comments and indicated that some
of the proposed amendments from the MoC were incorporated into the
updated standard but the proposal to include a mandatory Conditional
Access System (CAS) could not be incorporated because, among other
reasons, the Committee did not find it appropriate to include that in a
standard specification document for Free-To-Air television receivers. Following
receipt of comments from industry stakeholders, dealers and world
renowned manufacturers, the GSA proceeded to publish the final standard
which has now been gazetted and is available for sale at the Ghana
Standards Authority.
GIBA
considers the exclusion of a mandatory CAS as a major victory for
indigenous Ghanaian businesses which dominate the FTA sector. The
proposal from the MoC to encrypt FTA content had attracted considerable
anger from the sector as the proposal would mean a tacit conversion of
their Free-To-Air broadcast services into a Pay-TV model, controlled by a
third party CA vendor and or the platform owner, allowing for the
monetization of their contents, as proposed by the Ministry of
Communications. As FTA broadcasting service providers, the Pay TV model
will only project dwindling advertising revenues, as the blocking of
contents would result in the reduction of viewers accessing the FTA
service.
This
culminated in the airing of a public service campaign by GIBA informing
the public of the unholy obstinacy on the part of the MoC and the
latter’s resolve to go ahead with the destructive policy which would
also deprive the poor Ghanaian of access to information. GIBA maintained
that the public service campaign which sought to show the policy shift
of the MoC was necessitated by the MoC’s refusal to engage with the
major stakeholder in the industry and to take account of its input. The
campaign was subsequently suspended through the intervention of the
Parliamentary Select Committee on Communication upon the promise of
facilitating engagement with the MoC to ensure that GIBA’s concerns were
addressed.
As was revealed in GIBA’s Press Statement of 28th
May 2019, there are official correspondence confirming that the policy
shift to introduce CAS was predicated on conversations between the MoC
and a media business interest called Inview Technologies, known for
partnering African government officials to make money off existing media
establishments to their disadvantage, and tactfully making the
government of unsuspecting African states to cough up huge sums of tax
payers funds for the purchase of Set-Top-Boxes (STBs) with CA keys, in
their control by default, for the trading of their numerous advertising
services, without any investment in infrastructure nor acquisition of
authorization from authorities such as the NCA. The said correspondence
showed that the Minister of Communications, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
handpicked Inview Technologies, and had discussions with them about
their launch of “FreeTv Ghana” which ironically would require Ghanaians
to pay for reception of Free-To-Air channels such as TV3, GhOne, TV
Africa, Crystal TV, Adom TV, UTV, JoyNews, JoyPrime, etc., all of which
Ghanaians (more than ninety five percent) have always relied on for
information and broadcasting services for free. Inview Technologies is a
UK company, registered locally in some African countries and Mr. Andy
Townend was introduced by the Hon. Minister of Communications as the
local representative of Inview Technologies, from the mother company.
GIBA
has made well researched proposals on alternatives to raise revenue to
fund public broadcasting and the DTT platform, that eliminated the need
to encrypt FTA television and which entailed no administrative cost for
the collection, in sharp contrast to the proposed use of a CA model, for
the collection of TV licence fees but the Ministry of Communications
has paid no heed.
With
the publication of the Revised Standard GS1099: 2019 by the Ghana
Standards Authority, GIBA is confident that the previous Conformance
Regime for the Certification of Receivers of Free-To-Air Digital
Terrestrial Television would be revised by the NCA to reflect the tenets
of the new standard. The MoC would also be expected to commence a
process to revise the DTT Policy to align with GS1099: 2019 and to
engage the television industry about the digital migration which has
long been stalled because of the efforts to introduce a CAS.
What is new about GS1099?
The
revised GS1099: 2019 published in August 2019 has expanded its scope to
now cater for Direct-To-Home (DTH) digital satellite television in
addition to DTT which was the sole subject matter of the earlier
standard. This also allows combo decoders (a hybrid of DTT and DTH
digital television receivers) to be covered. Until now digital receivers
for DTH satellite television in Ghana had been largely unregulated.
Operators in this category did not have to apply for equipment type
approval and certification because there were no published minimum
specifications to guide such a process. The National Communications
Authority (NCA) will now be expected to put in place appropriate
processes for the implementation of a type approval regime for both DTT
and DTH Receivers.
The
revised standard also introduces a new minimum requirement of HEVC
(High Efficiency Video Coding) for HD (High Definition) digital
receivers. HEVC, also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video
compression standard, designed as a successor to the widely used
Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In comparison to
AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same
level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the
same bit rate.
Other changes made to the standard include an upgrade of the flash memory, a revision of the frequencies for Ku band and C-band, an addition of L-band frequencies and a revision of DTT modulation and transmission parameters.
Source: Adomonline.com | Samuel Dowuona
