{"id":778514,"date":"2020-01-08T13:45:04","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T13:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2020\/01\/08\/gibafights-communications-ministry\/"},"modified":"2020-01-08T13:45:04","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T13:45:04","slug":"gibafights-communications-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/01\/08\/gibafights-communications-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"GIBAFights Communications Ministry &#8211;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Ursula Owusu Ekuful<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>THE<br \/>\nGHANA Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) has accused the Ministry of<br \/>\nCommunications of publishing what it termed as a doctored standards document<br \/>\nwith the intention of sneaking in conditional access for free-to-air<br \/>\ntelevision.<\/p>\n<p>GIBA<br \/>\nmade this known in a press release dated January 7, 2020 and signed by its<br \/>\npresident, Andrew Danso-Aninkora, who cited a case of unfair treatment on the<br \/>\npart of the Communications Ministry.<\/p>\n<p>According<br \/>\nto the association, which is the umbrella body of private broadcast operators<br \/>\nin Ghana, since 2017, the Ministry of Communications has been attempting to<br \/>\nimplement dramatic changes in the television broadcast sector with the<br \/>\nintroduction of a system of control (Conditional Access System) which GIBA \u201cobjected<br \/>\nto due to its ability to lock down the liberalised airwaves and send the nation<br \/>\nback to the dark days of a government monopolized and controlled media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On<br \/>\nthe 18th of December, 2019, the release said GIBA welcomed a revised standard<br \/>\n(GS1099: 2019) on Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and Direct-To-Home (DTH)<br \/>\nReceivers by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), which made Conditional Access<br \/>\nSystem (CAS) non-mandatory for Free-To-Air TV Receivers. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn<br \/>\na dramatic fashion\u201d, it claimed, \u201cthe ministry, working together with<br \/>\nAndy Townend \u2013 representing Inview Technologies, assisted by Oluwatoyin Subair<br \/>\n\u2013 Founder of the erstwhile Hi-TV Pay Network in Nigeria and ILC Consulting Ltd,<br \/>\nhave come out with an alarming publication which is a doctored version of the<br \/>\nGhana Standards Authority\u2019s newly gazetted and published Technical Standard of<br \/>\nAugust 2019 as the Ghana Minimum Technical Specifications for Digital<br \/>\nTerrestrial Television (DTT) &amp; Direct-to-Home (DTH) Receivers for<br \/>\nFree-to-Air Television Reception.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\ndoctored document, which was published on 30th December, 2019 by the National<br \/>\nCommunications Authority (NCA) on its official website as a technical standard,<br \/>\nsaid requires the broadcast industry in Ghana and all Ghanaian households to<br \/>\nabide by its mandatory requirements for the reception of all TV programmes<br \/>\ncarried on the nation\u2019s only free-to-air digital broadcasting facility. <\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nrequirements include the acquisition of a special decoder with proprietary<br \/>\nsoftware, before anyone could watch any Free-to-Air television programme in<br \/>\nGhana.<\/p>\n<p>The<br \/>\nspecial decoder, according to the release, shall be controlled by Conditional<br \/>\nAccess software and Middleware applications to be provided by a foreign company<br \/>\ncalled Verimatrix, solely selected by the MoC as its partner. <\/p>\n<p>By<br \/>\ndefault, Verimatrix which has also been awarded the business of running broadcasting<br \/>\nvalued added services shall perpetually provide updates to the platform because<br \/>\nby virtue of the proprietary software introduced, no other entity can perform<br \/>\nupdates to the platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey<br \/>\nhave also been given the mandate to trade in broadcasting services, without<br \/>\nauthorization by the NCA as required,\u201d it said<\/p>\n<p><strong>Unfair Treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis<br \/>\nraises serious issues of unfair competition which will be addressed later in<br \/>\nthis release,\u201d the association complained in the release.<\/p>\n<p>It<br \/>\ncontinued \u201cseveral entities have had to go through a vigorous qualification<br \/>\nprocess to receive broadcast authorisation to provide some of the very broadcast<br \/>\nservices which the MoC is freely and discriminately giving out to its broadcast<br \/>\npartners exclusively and with the full support of tax-payers funds under the<br \/>\npretext of them being consultants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDetails<br \/>\nof these facts can be found in the service offerings of Inview Technologies as<br \/>\npublished in the GIBA Press Release in the Daily Graphic of 28th May 2019,\u201d it<br \/>\nadded.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Businesses<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It<br \/>\nrevealed that among the several businesses handed over to the software partners<br \/>\nby the ministry are on-screen banner advertising, Push Video On Demand and<br \/>\nPortable Video Recording, Connected Services, Interactive Broadcast Services,<br \/>\nwith a Conditional Access System, Middleware Applications and Receiver<br \/>\nSecurity, which are all exclusively handed over to Verimatrix.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically,<br \/>\nthese broadcast services, handed down to the Middleware partners as Value Added<br \/>\nServices (VAS), can only be achieved by running on content generated off the<br \/>\nmainstream local broadcast services providers, such as TV3, UTV, Joy News,<br \/>\nCrystal TV, GhOne TV, Net2 TV and every other broadcast channel to be carried<br \/>\non the nations DTT platform, it added.<\/p>\n<p>This is what GIBA has pointed out is akin to the setting up of a subscription-based television broadcast facility with state funds for the benefit of a private enterprise.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>BY Melvin Tarlue<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ursula Owusu Ekuful THE GHANA Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) has accused the Ministry of Communications of publishing what it termed as a doctored standards document with the intention of sneaking in conditional access for free-to-air television. GIBA made this known in a press release dated January 7, 2020 and signed by its president, Andrew Danso-Aninkora, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":706218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-778514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>GIBAFights Communications Ministry - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/01\/08\/gibafights-communications-ministry\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"GIBAFights Communications Ministry - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Ursula Owusu Ekuful THE GHANA Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) has accused the Ministry of Communications of publishing what it termed as a doctored standards document with the intention of sneaking in conditional access for free-to-air television. 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