Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, minister of communications and digital technologies, has urged the public to transition from analog TV to compatible digital television sets as the government works to complete the analogue switch-off.
This is because the Minister plans to publish a public notice announcing that applications and registrations for government-subsidized set-top boxes for eligible impoverished households must be submitted by September 30, 2022, in a government gazette.
“I previously set a provisional deadline of October 31, 2021, for the call for applications for Government-subsidized Set-Top-Boxes (STBs), which started in October 2015.
“The 30th of September 2022 is the final deadline, and no applications will be processed after this date,” the Minister said on Thursday. “The 31st of October 2021 deadline was provisional as qualifying households could still apply for STBs after.
Ntshavheni mentioned a reduction in STB applications and registrations in recent months while speaking at a media conference in Pretoria on the constitutional court’s decision to end Digital Migration.
The Gauteng high court’s decision to transition to analog by the end of June 2022 was overturned by the Constitutional Court last month.
According to the Minister, “The Court found that Analogue switch-off is an urgent national priority and, after appropriate notice is given to the public to allow them to make informed judgments about whether to register for an STB, digital migration should begin without further delay.”
“In the five provinces of the Free State, Northern Cape, North West, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) analogue transmission has been turned off.
As a result, Sentech was able to finish restacking the spectrum bands for the five provinces’ digital migration.
Therefore, in line with ICASA intentions, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is continuing to release the high-demand spectrum that was auctioned in these five provinces, according to Ntshavheni.
By deploying 4G and 5G networks, the telecommunication network operators would be able to relieve network congestion in the five moved provinces.
However, digital migration cannot be finished and the auctioned spectrum cannot be released until the analogue switch-off (ASO) is achieved in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and Eastern Cape.
“With the exception of the flood-affected provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, all provinces have completed registrations as of the end of October 2021.
94, 113 beneficiary homes were still without connections as of June 30, 2022, notwithstanding the modest rate at which connections are being made in the two provinces.
The Minister stated, “We started with installations for homes that registered by the end of March 2022 in the five provinces that have finished installations of 31 October 2021 registrations, except Western Cape and North-West have still to commence.
By the end of March 2022, 56 354 households that had registered had STBs installed by the government.
Free State and the Northern Cape are already in the mop-up stage.
“As soon as we finish the end of March registrations in the provinces, we will start connecting the end of June registrations.
There were 260 268 households registered overall between 1 November 2021 and 31 March 2022.
In the five months between November and March, this equates to an average of 52 000 registrations per month.
A decrease in STB applications and registrations is evident from the overall number of households that will be registered between April 2022 and June 2022, which comes to 49 385. This equates to an average of 16, 461 registrations per month.
The Minister announced that she planned to issue a government Gazette notifying the public of the deadline for registering and submitting applications for government-sponsored set-top boxes for eligible impoverished households.
“I am advising the general public and non-indigent families that are still using analogue TV of my decision to turn it off and urging them to replace it with compliant digital television sets from the retail sector.
The Go-Digital badge serves as a sign that a digital TV set is compliant, according to Ntshavheni.