Digital migration: Millions of Ugandans to be affected

What you need to know:

Technology advancement. With the deadlines for the switch changing from time to time and regulators disagreeing with the signal distributor, the switch for Uganda still has a long way to go.

KAMPALA

As the international deadline for the transition from analog to digital broadcasting draws near, questions have been raised whether Uganda will have a smooth migration.

Not only are the set-top box not affordable for many but the government lacks funds to achieve the set target of December 31. This is coupled with a series of contradictions from the bodies tasked with overseeing the transition.

While it had earlier been agreed that Uganda and other East African countries would switch from analog to digital broadcasting by December 31 this year, the deadline has been silently postponed to July17, 2015 –the global deadline.

According to Mr Nyombi Thembo, the state minister for ICT, the failure to beat the regional deadline is not a big deal and has no consequence because this was only an arrangement by East Africa member states. “As long as we can beat the international deadline, the regional date has no impact. We shall only have a crisis if we fail to meet the international deadline, as we may be locked out of international broadcasting,” Mr Thembo said recently.

With such an attitude, the minister had been forced to withdraw his early position as he had on several occasions been quoted as saying that Uganda would migrate by December 31. However, the deadline failure raises several questions about the country’s commitment, particularly Uganda to realise the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting.

Whereas neighbours like Kenya recently pushed its deadline to March 2013 after the country’s General Elections, Uganda remains nervous about tagging any particular date as to when it expects to have switched.

Instead, stakeholders, particularly the Ugandan government continues to elbow each other with contradictory information on the switch. The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the process’ regulator and Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), the signal distributor continue to contradict each other over when Kampala and other neighbouring towns will actually switch to digital broadcasting.

Mr Fred Otunnu, the head of communication and consumer affairs at UCC, told the Saturday Monitor that the commission had invested about Shs5.2 billion to ensure that Kampala and other towns switch by December 31.

“We intervened to fasten the implementation process. As we implement this, the government should invest in the signal distributor to implement a countrywide migration,” Mr Otunnu said.
However, Mr Paul Kihika, the UBC managing director, said on telephone that UCC’s position concerning Kampala and its neighborhood is impossible and unachievable.

“It is not possible for Kampala and areas in the radius of 150 kilometres to be switched on before the end of this year. Even if you perform miracles, Kampala cannot be switched on by 31 December,” Mr Kihika said.

He added: “The process is ongoing but we believe the switch is likely to start next year. We concluded the feasibility study and we now know what equipment and how many set boxes we need.”
The other disagreement involves UCC’s stand on the kind of standard and technology; the DVB-T1 and DVBT-2 set boxes, which are required as the standard for the digital switch.

While UCC agrees on DVBT2 as the ideal for digital migration, StarTimes -a pay TV service provider, had been given a licence by the former to sell DVBT1 set top boxes. This was, however, resolved recently after StarTimes launched the DVBT2 decoders and pledged to replace all its customers’ DVBT decoders with the latest technology (DVBT2).

Why the migration?
The push for the switch is informed by the 2006 Regional Radio-communications Conference of and the 2006 Geneva Agreement of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), where it was recommended that global broadcasters implement the migration from analog to digital broadcasting by June 17, 2015.

According to the ITU, digital migration is crucial as it will help improve broadcast quality as well free the currently over congested spectrum. The freed space (digital dividend spectrum) is expected to be offered to mobile telephone companies to improve their voice and data connections.
“Presence of a digital dividend spectrum would mean that less infrastructure would be required to provide wider mobile coverage, all resulting in lower costs for communication services, especially in rural areas,” part of the notes posted on the ITU website, explain.

Delayed digital migration, will mean continued poor mobile phone network in the country, in addition to poor quality of television pictures.

Digital broadcasting comes with several other benefits such as; efficient use of the frequency spectrum, a scarce resource, more channels, better picture quality, lower transmission costs, optimal utilisation of the transmission infrastructure and reduction of the negative impact of the broadcasting infrastructure.