Friday, 28th October 2016 marks the beginning of the Analogue Switch-Off (ASO) in South Africa. This major national milestone forms part of the country’s Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) process, and will begin in the Northern Cape within the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). This event will attract attention of global stakeholders including the International Telecommunications Union(ITU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), African Telecommunications Union (ATU) and Communications Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) who’s interest is to see conclusion of the DTT migration process.

SENTECH, the state-owned broadcasting signal distributor, fulfilled its mandate by concluding its DTT infrastructure installation process of the 178 transmitter stations nationwide and a Direct-To-Home (DTH) broadcasting infrastructure to ensure 100% DTT access for South African citizens. 

“It is an honor for SENTECH to be a part of this milestone event and we remain committed to ensuring connected citizens through a digital network.  The migration from analogue to digital television presents more opportunities for broadcasters in terms of content proliferation and affords South African audiences, a wider range of higher quality television channels. The DTT platform is also an alternate revenue stream within SENTECH’s broadcasting signal distribution services,” says SENTECH’s CEO, Mr. Mlamli Booi. 

In addition, SENTECH, was mandated to enable the DTT Contact Centre to assist the general public with technical and logistics related questions such as decoder activation process, installation troubleshooting and general DTT roll out information.

To deliver on its mandate, the DTT Contact Centre administers all inbound calls to provide South African audiences DTT support by channeling all DTT queries to the relevant Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) Stakeholders. The DTT Contact Centre has been instrumental in ensuring an average of 99% activations within the Northern Cape’s Square Kilometer Array (SKA) areas.

The ASO will be undertaken in phases across the nine provinces, starting with the Northern Cape and followed by the Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng.