Analogue TV signal switch-off deadline set for December
ICT Principal Secretary Joseph Tiampati (left) with CCK director-general Francis Wangusi during a press conference in 2013 to announce the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA
What you need to know:
The Principal Secretary ICT Joseph Tiampati said the slow pace of migration could see many blacked out or locked out of communication if the trend continuous.
Only 500,000 households in Nairobi out of an estimated 1,000,000 owning televisions sets have acquired the gadgets, commonly called set top boxes, that convert analogue signals to digital form.
The government programme has set December as the switch-off date for the Nairobi region while the other parts of the country will be done gradually as it seeks to meet the global deadline of 2015.
Just half the households in Nairobi have migrated to digital broadcasting four months to the December 13, 2013 switch-off deadline for analogue signals in the city.
The Information Communication and Technology (ICT) ministry on Tuesday said only 500,000 households in Nairobi out of an estimated 1,000,000 owning televisions sets have acquired the gadgets, commonly called set top boxes.
The gadgets convert analogue signals to digital form.
The Principal Secretary ICT Joseph Tiampati said the slow pace of migration could see many blacked out or locked out of communication if the trend continuous.
The staggered government programme has set December as the switch-off date for the Nairobi region while the other parts of the country will be done gradually as it seeks to meet the global deadline of 2015.
“I take this opportunity to urge members of the public to only purchase compliant set top boxes in order to enjoy the benefits of digital migration and not be left out at the time of the analogue switch off,” said Mr Tiampati.
“We have finally agreed with all stakeholders in the broadcasting industry that the switch-off be done in phases beginning with Nairobi on December 13th,” he added.
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.
The switch-off dates for Mombasa, Malindi, Nyeri, Meru, Kisumu, Webuye, Kisii, Nakuru and Eldoret are set for March 2014. The remaining parts of the country have until June 30, 2014.
The migration process which begun in 2010 has been marred by hiccups that started with the government changing the technical specifications of the set top boxes from the Digital Video Broadcast Technology 1 (DVBT) to DVBT 2 and later a court case by the Consumers Federation of Kenya (Cofek).
Last month, Cofek entered an out of court agreement giving the ministry and CCK a free hand to announce the switch-off dates.
Another major issue has been high prices of the set top boxes despite the government zero-rating the gadgets.
An earlier report by CCK indicated that 224,000 set top boxes that have been bought in readiness for migration to digital TV are owned by pay television providers StarTimes, Gotv and Zuku who do not guarantee access to free-to-air channels.
CCK said that only 11,000 free-to-air set top boxes had so far been sold by independent dealers.
The high sales of the multi-channel decoders by pay TV providers is attributed to the pricing with the gadgets costing between Sh1,999 and Sh2,500. The price of commercial set top boxes ranges between Sh4,500 to Sh6,500.
Subscribers for pay TV services, however, have to pay monthly fees ranging between Sh499 and Sh6,800 which CCK fears may not be sustained by low-income earners, necessitating the protection of free-to-air services.
The country has rolled out digital television infrastructure to 70 per cent of the population.
Digital signals are currently available in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nyeri, Webuye, and Meru.
The global oversight body for digital migration, Universal Postal Union (UPU), set June 2015 as the deadline for global migration to digital TV broadcasting.
