UCC revises digital switch standard specifications
Pay Tv providers will be required to fulfil certain specification standards. FILE PHOTO.
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has adjusted the digital migration standard specification in order to ease the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting.
The move follows a series of concerns and complaints raised by different stakeholders about how the regulator (UCC) is handling the migration process with many citing panic and limited sensitisation as the biggest challenges.
In a statement, UCC said the required specifications had been changed with the conditional access feature on DVB-T2 set top boxes now optional for free to air Tv content but compulsory for pay Tv.
“In the earlier specifications, it was a requirement that all set top boxes should have at least one embedded smart card reader or a DVB-CI (Common Interface) slot to allow any type of conditional access module to be plugged into the set top box,” reads the statement in part.
“Accordingly, the conditional access feature is optional for DVB-T2 set top boxes intended for use to receive Free to Air (FTA) TV content on the digital terrestrial platforms in Uganda. The feature remains mandatory for DVB-T2 set top boxes that are intended for use to receive premium content or pay/subscription TV on the digital terrestrial platform.”
Eng Godfrey Mutabazi, the UCC executive director later on told Daily Monitor the latest specifications reviews were due to continued public inquiry and the need for more detailed information about the matter.
“We want to safeguard the whole industry; importers, distributors and users on what is right to import, buy or not. We are taking reasonable decisions that will fasten the process. Uganda Revenue Authority and the standards board do the actual implantation of these decisions.”
Meanwhile, Mr Simon Arinaitwe, the Star Times country sales manager, told this newspaper that they will be unveiling their first DVB-T2 stock on Tuesday.
“We already have DVB-T2 set top boxes in the country. We shall unveil them on tomorrow. We will replace our customers‘decoders with DVB-T2 set top boxes at no additional cost.”
Since the adoption of DVB-T2 as the standard for digital migration more than four months ago, there has been a series of events, including UCC directing Star Times to withdraw DVB-T1 set top boxes from the market last week.
