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Digital migration awareness campaign to cost R90m

Cape Town - A R90m digital terrestrial television (DTT) awareness campaign is expected to kick-off “urgently”, say two Parliament committees.

The Portfolio Committees on Communications and Telecommunications and Postal Services said on Wednesday that they are “satisfied” with government’s readiness to roll out the country’s digital migration programme.

The move comes after government last week committed to adopting a set-top box access control system, potentially ending a years-long delay on digital migration.

The Department of Communications is spearheading the country’s digital migration project, which plans to shift broadcasters off analogue signals, boost the number of television channels and open up frequencies for faster mobile broadband services.

“The two Committees have advised the Department (of Communications) to urgently commence with the DTT awareness campaign aimed at educating the public about the project. The Department said it has budgeted R90m for the awareness campaign,” reads a statement from the committees on Wednesday.

Both the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Siyabonga Cwele, and the Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, did not attend the joint sittings of the committees this week, sparking criticism from opposition members of Parliament.

Muthambi has been attending the 2015 World Communication Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to a notice on her department's website.

Nevertheless, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Telecommunications and Postal Services, Mmamoloko Kubayi, said the Department of Communications "presented clear information about the roll-out of the project to the satisfaction of the Committees".

“We would like the Minister to be available at the next meeting when the agenda item before the Committees is about this project, but so far we appreciate the level of preparedness by the Department and entities,” Ms Kubayi said.

SA to miss deadline

Despite final movement on digital migration after years of delays, South Africa is still likely to miss the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) digital switchover deadline of June 2015.

Instead, officials have said it could take between two to three years for the process to be completed.

In the meantime, state-owned signal operator Sentech has reported that as of 4 March 2015, it completed the roll-out of digital infrastructure of 178 analogue sites.

This means that its digital infrastructure has an 84.01% population coverage and 57.82% geographic coverage.

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