Bumpy ride as EA implements digital migration

Kenyans buying set top boxes in Nairobi on December 27, 2013. Photo/Salaton Njau 

By JOINT REPORT The EastAfrican

In Summary

• The digital switchover, which had already been effected at midnight, December 26, will now be put on hold for 45 days until the case is heard and determined on or before February 6, 2014.
• Governments in East Africa have begun switching off analog broadcasting ahead of the June 2015 deadline.

 

Kenyan media and television viewers on Friday got a reprieve after the Court of Appeal barred the government from switching off the analog signal pending the determination of an appeal filed by the Media Owners Association.

The digital switchover, which had already been effected at midnight, December 26, will now be put on hold for 45 days until the case is heard and determined on or before February 6, 2014.

The Court ordered the government to reinstate NTV, KTN and Citizen analog frequencies, which had been switched off, blacking out viewers who had not bought set-top boxes.

The decision means the government will have to go back to the drawing board and come up with another schedule after February 6, 2014. The government, through the Ministry of Information and Communications, has said it will abide by the court ruling.

Governments in East Africa have begun switching off analog broadcasting ahead of the June 2015 deadline.

Kenya joins Tanzania, which began the switchover programme last year. Already, Dar es Salaam has moved to the digital platform.

A recent study by Analysys Mason shows that after switching off analog in the city, the demand for set-top boxes at distribution centres during the first five days of 2013 increased tremendously.

Set deadline

The analog signal was turned off in Dodoma and Tanga on January 31, Mwanza onFebruary 28, Arusha and Moshi on March 31, and Mbeya on April 30, 2013.

Tanzania’s switch off is still ongoing. Despite complaints from non-governmental organisations and the Media Owners Association of Tanzania and an appeal to restore the analog signal, the process was neither halted nor reversed.

In early January, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) estimated that two million set top boxes had been sold across the country, compared with its estimate that 2.6 million TV sets would require set top boxes.

Uganda switched to digital broadcasting in August, starting with the central region, with UBC as signal distributor running on both analog and digital platforms simultaneously, to allow more consumers acquire decoders ahead of the overall digital switch. The country has however revised its deadline to fully switch to digital broadcasting to the end of next year.

Godfrey Mutabazi, executive director at the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) said the commission and other regulators in the East African Community — with the exception of Tanzania — had agreed to switch to digital broadcasting  by the end of next year, having failed to meet the December 31, 2012  EAC deadline.

READ: EA struggles to meet digital migration deadline

Mr Mutabazi, said  the UCC is expecting to switch the entire country from analog to digital broadcasting by the end of 2014, some six months earlier than the global deadline of June 2015.