Dar offers hard lessons on switch to digital TV

East African Community (EAC) states that are yet to switch from analogue to digital broadcast signals can take a few lessons from Tanzania, which adopted the new system on December 31.

The five members states had agreed to go digital three years ahead of global schedule to ensure that they have ample time to fix any unforeseen glitches and enable them comply with 2015 global deadline.

But only Tanzania adhered to the deadline by moving Dar-es-Salaam to the new system. Kenyan policy makers say the move will give Tanzania an advantage in correcting technical hurdles that the country may encounter along the way as it migrates other part of the country.

Apart from more content generation, the switch is expected to expand opportunities for investors in digital terrestrial TV, broadcast mobile TV and commercial wireless broadband services. Consumers are expected to benefit from clear pictures.

Kenya and Uganda are still lagging in the switch-over, with Kenya’s process, initially slated for December 31, 2012, delayed through a court order pending hearing of a case challenging the migration. The ruling on the case will be made Friday.

Rwanda and Burundi are yet to start the transformation.

Information permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo believes that Tanzania will have ample time to learn and correct any technical hurdles as it rolls out the services to other parts of the country compared to its neighbours who are yet to start the migration.

“Tanzania is going to have a better learning curve than any other country and that is why we wanted to stick to the December switch off deadline for Nairobi,” said Dr Ndemo.

“Other than policy issues which Kenya has put in place, the migration process takes time and should be done in phases to correct some technical hurdles, otherwise if you wait and switch off the entire country at once you will mess up the whole thing .”

A survey by Xinhua in Tanzania reveals that five out of 20 people they interviewed in Arusha cannot access their favourite free-to- air channels since the dealers of the gadgets mostly pay television providers who are asking for a monthly fee Tsh9000(Sh489).

Only five out of 20 people interviewed in Dar es Salaam by Xinhua said they have access to television broadcasts.

“We only have useless boxes in our living rooms for we cannot access any stations without a decoder,” George Kaniki of Mbezi Louis, Dar es Salaam, said in an interview.

According to a programme by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), regions set to follow in the switch- off will be Dodoma and Tanga, whose analogue signals will be deactivated by the end of this month.

January Makamba, Deputy Minister for Communications, Science and Technology, was late last month quoted as saying that the digital signal had already been introduced in many parts of the country including Mwanza, Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Mbeya.

The concerns raised by Arusha residents about the affordability of set top boxes, the gadgets that converts the analogue signal to digital are similar to those raised here in Kenya.

However, other than pricing issue, CCK Director General Francis Wangusi has previously cited the slow deployment of digital TV infrastructure as an obstacle in Kenya.

So far the country has the digital television infrastructure to 70 per cent of the population exposed to television covering Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nyeri, Webuye and Meru.

Tanzania has a relatively low TV coverage with only about 15 percent of the population and mainly in urban areas having access to television broadcasting.

Only seven towns out of more than 20, which need to migrate to digital terrestrial TV, are directly covered by terrestrial analogy TV.

The rest of the country either doesn’t have TV coverage or people access TV through satellites or cables, which won’t need to migrate to digital terrestrial, according to TCRA Public Relations Manager Innocent Mungy.

According to TCRA’s latest statistics, till middle of last year the migration rate was about 25 per cent. But since then a lot of areas have been covered, mainly pushed by the government’s fiscal incentives to digital broadcasting companies.

At the end of every month through to April, the government would be switching off analogue broadcasting in one of the remaining regions, he said. He said Mwanza would migrate completely to digital signal by the end of next month, while Mbeya, Moshi and Arusha would follow suit in the month after.

TCRA promised a smooth transition all over the country to avoid inconveniencing people. In the course of this, urging Tanzanians to purchase the set top boxes (decoders) to convert analogue TV’s into digital signal.

However, most homes in Dar- es-Salaam own old TV sets which cannot transmit digital signals without use of decoders.

It is not all that easy to spend over Sh147,000 for the gadget and programme (annually) in the prevailing economic hardships,” Hashim Kindole who resides at Mbagala in Dar es Salaam said in an interview.

“Not many people will be watching television from their homes in the coming 12 months.

“To purchase a new television set is not in my budget. I am currently concerned with paying school fees for my children. I will consider buying a decoder probably in June, not now,” he said.