Ghana is ambitiously working towards migrating from analogue to digital terrestrial television by the close of the 2014, a year ahead of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline a year after. Courtesy Multichoice Ghana, Charles Benoni Okine reports from Johannesburg on the way forward.
A Television Studio Consultant at Multichoice Africa, Mr Angus M. Clarke, has lauded efforts by the Ghana government to migrate from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) as a positive move but cautioned it to follow its implementation plan religiously to avoid any hitches.
“They must have a big plan of how to roll out that process because that is very key to the success of that migration and to be able to meet the deadline as set by the world body”, he said.
Mr Clarke gave the advice in an exclusive interview with the Graphic Business at the headquarters of Multichoice in Johannesburg.
It was shortly after the Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, together with his delegation, has toured some of the facilities of Multichoice as part of a plan to acquaint himself with the requirements of DTT.
Mr Clarke said one analogue takes a lot of bandwidth but the DTT can take as many as 16 channels which mean that the players in the industry must be ready to increase their content as well as upgrade existing ones to make it exciting and appealing to viewers.
“How much content do the television stations have in Ghana because they will have the capacity to put out a lot of content and programming over the time space to be created through DTT”, he said.
He also raised the delicate issue about set-up boxes and noted that the boxes have to be heavily subsidized to enable majority of the people who do not want to watch the national television to have access to their choice.
Mr Clarke also noted that at the start of the migration, the national broadcaster must conduct a thorough research to know the standards for the set-up boxes to enable them to meet at least the minimum standard as it pertains to each region.
“By now they should have decided on the protocols and type of boxes and they must be manufactured with the size of the population in mind and the targeted people who will be given the boxes”, he added.
Mr Clarke said the dstv holders already have the national broadcaster on it and it is free to air but those who want other stations and channels must have their set-up boxes.
Benefits of migration.The migration will bring about; Higher Spectrum Efficiency as shown; Better Picture quality; Clearer Sound (CD quality audio); More Stations and therefore more choice; More Interactivity (including electronic programming guides (EPG), games, among others things.
Why the migration
The migration has become necessary to enable Ghana to; Comply with and adopt the tenets of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Conference in Geneva in the year 2006 (GE-06) Agreement; To rapidly adopt spectrum efficient methods in the management of the scarce RF spectrum; To broaden its utility as a resource in the interest and benefit of stakeholders; To prevent dumping of obsolete analogue TV equipment into the country to protect both investors and consumers; To enhance the quality and experience of TV viewers in Ghana
Role of Network Operator / Signal Distributor
According to a report on the implementation of the migration process, the various network operators and
signal distributors will have to deal with issues of carriage of the signal from source to distribution site; distribution of the signal to designated transmission sites; broadcast of the signal within the service area
Their Obligations
They are supposed to provide services to broadcasters on an equitable, reasonable, non-preferential and non-discriminatory basis; Adhere to license conditions as provided by the Regulator; Provide quality delivery of broadcasting services as per contract between the signal distributor and the broadcaster; Ensure that the digital transmission coverage is similar to or better than the existing analogue transmission coverage; Regularly apprise the Regulator on (a regular basis, on) the utilization of frequency channels and broadcasters’ database; Avail all the network configurations to the regulator; Set tariffs commensurate to services provided.
In a related development, Mr Iddrisu said Ghana’s migration from the analogue to the digital terrestrial television system will begin from October 1, 2014, to enable the country to meet a deadline of the end of 2014.
Consequently, he said a Chinese company, after a competitive bidding process, has been selected to undertake the digital migration process which involves design and construction of “a reliable cost effective, energy efficient infrastructure system that will lead to improvement in picture quality and make us benefit from spectrum dividend at a total cost of $95 million”.
The General Manager of Multichoice Ghana, Mr Cecil Sunkwa-Mills also described the determination of the government to migrate the country as a laudable idea and one which will be of enormous benefit to the people.
He said there will be free spectrum space that could be used for other relevant purposes that will benefit the state.
Mr Sunkwa-Mills said Multichoice was ready to offer the government any assistance to ensure that the process is carried out without any hitches
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