It is time to say goodbye to analogue television.
This comes after the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, told residents in Umdoni Municipality on Saturday that the date for South Africa’s analogue switch-off will be announced after September 30.
Ntshavheni said her previous deadline of October 31, 2021 was provisional, adding that the new deadline of September 30 will be final, and no applications will be considered after that.
She added that Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) would release the auctioned high-demand spectrum for use by mobile network operators in different provinces.
“The release of the spectrum will enable the mobile network operators to decongest the networks with the deployment of 4G and 5G. The remaining four provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Eastern Cape, and the Western Cape will only have their analogue switch-off completed at a date to be determined. For this date to be determined, the set-top box registration for needy households needs to be finalised. These set-top boxes (STBs) are decoder-like devices that convert digital TV broadcast into a signal older analogue-only TVs can display,” she said, adding that viewers only need an STB if they do not already have a digital television set, or use a satellite TV service.
Ntshavheni said the call for applications for these STBs began in October 2015, adding that qualifying households had almost seven years to register.
She said in the provinces where the analogue switch-off had been completed, mobile network operators could start using network capacity, radio frequency spectrum, that had been freed up.
The minister said after September 30, she will evaluate the number of new registrations against the progress with installations and start consultations with affected parties on a new analogue switch-off date.
The minister provided figures to show the number of registrations and completed installations over the past few months.
She said before October 31, 2021 there were 1,228,879 registrations, with 1,134,766 installations completed.
She said the remaining registrations were delayed by floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
Nthshaveni said the total outstanding installations for all registrations by June 30, 2022 were 403,766.
She added that due to the decline in STB applications and registrations in recent months and comparing the end of October, end-March, and end-June registrations, the department is giving households until the end of September 2022 to register.
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