By Kemo Cham
Imagine you are watching a program on your television set and the pictures begin to blur. Then all of a sudden the screen goes blind and you soon realize there is no available channel. This situation is what Sierra Leoneans will find themselves in if urgent and proactive action is not taken by the government to meet the global deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) on Digital Migration.
ITU is the specialized UN agency that coordinates global telecommunications issues. It allocates radio spectrum and satellite orbits, among others.
In a 2006 summit in Geneva, headquarters of the organization, member countries set June 17, 2015 as cut-off date for all countries to switch to digital transmission of television signals from the current analogue mode. This is what is termed Digital Migration. It is set to transform television viewing with enhanced video and audio quality. There will be more interactivity and increased programme choices. With analogue, signals are weaker the more distant they are from a broadcast tower. And quality is subjected to the height of one’s antenna and proximity to obstructions such as tall buildings. Weather patterns also affect picture quality. This partly explains our unenviable experience with the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) during the rainy season.
Besides content generation, the switch over is expected to expand opportunities for investors in digital terrestrial TV, broadcast mobile TV, and commercial wireless broadband services, experts say. So, as 2015 fast approaches, where is Sierra Leone at?
No dialogue
Compared to the rest of the world, Africa is lagging far behind, with fears that the region may likely not meet the deadline. However, few individual countries have been making major strides.
According to the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), a global network of CSOs championing political empowerment through access to ICTs, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco and Mauritius were by end of 2011 expected to commence digital broadcasting in parallel with analogue signals.
Ghana, Guinea, South Africa and Burundi were set to carry out pilot transmissions.
Senegal, Zambia, Botswana, Algeria, Egypt, Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Cameroon, and Malawi, were all set to start the policy process, which takes between 2 and 3 years to attain digital transmission.
Sierra Leone was among 28 other countries said to be lagging behind with no sign of action. While for many of these countries the upheaval over this journey has to do with funding, for Sierra Leone it is far more.
Implementation of Digital Migration requires collaboration among government agencies, with the Ministries of Communication and Telecoms regulators at the head. It also involves broadcasters, particularly the national broadcasters. Like many TV broadcasters on the continent, SLBC broadcasts from digital studios but transmits analogue-wise to receivers. A major upgrading is needed to meet the Digital Migration requirements.
Regional blocs like the East African Community, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) had self-imposed deadlines to encourage member countries speed up efforts to meet the ITU deadline. However, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the last time I checked, had no such deadline.
Nonetheless, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and even our next door neighbour Guinea have been making progress, according to reports. Ghana recently announced plans to switch off in phases starting December 2014 and it has informed all its TV service providers for necessary actions in this regard. The Liberian Information ministry, in April, convened a special press briefing presenting its preparation for 2015.
In Sierra Leone no dialogue has been going on, SLBC Director General, Elvis Gbanabom Hallowell, said in an interview recently.
“For over a year SLBC has been engaging the authorities but with no headway,” he said, “and as a result the country is two years behind schedule.”
Very few officials who are supposed to be handling the issue, I found, seem to know about it, not to talk about the general public, and which confirms the nonexistence of public discourse on the subject.
Added pressure
Following the recent landing of the fibre optic cable, Sierra Leone has been putting in place a number of related projects, including the national telecoms infrastructure backbone under the ECOWAS project - ECOWAN. The need for a revised Information and Telecoms Act was informed by that regional initiative – a World Bank sponsored project that requires greater private sector involvement.
“We are still working on the new Telecommunications Commission Act, and digital migration is one thing that will be mentioned – how to implement and control it, as well as the role of NATCOM [National Telecommunications Commission],” said Bakarr Tarawally, Director of Communication, Ministry of Information and Communication.
Sierra Leone’s Digital Migration project is estimated at between US$ 10 M and US$ 25M. Yet up to this point no official I have spoken to seems to have any idea where that money will come from.
Finance aside, there are other intricate issues.
As is typical of almost all developing countries, most TV sets in this country are not compatible with digital transmission. Therefore, there is need for the set top box or digital TV decoder, for those of us who have DSTV, Medo Sat or other pay TV services, which convert digital signals into a format compatible with our analogue TV sets.
However, the cost of these set top boxes may lock out millions of Sierra Leoneans who may not afford it.
Accordingly, after 17 June, 2015, there shall be no manufacture, assembly, importation, marketing or sale of analogue TV sets or their gadgets. Eventually, we will be forced to do away with our outdated appliances anyway. Arrangement must therefore be made so that these set top boxes are procured in a way that meets the purchasing power of the average citizen. Other African countries have done so.
There is hardly any reliable statistics indicating the number of set top boxes Sierra Leone might require. NATCOM appears to have too much on its plate to handle that.
However, information ministry officials said an initial number of 304 set top boxes were planned for procurement, with an eventual target of an estimated 1 million households.
This number, according to Chief Technology Officer, James Kanja Cobba, is by the estimation of one of two unnamed firms - Chinese and British – which had expressed interest in the project.
Chinese firm, Start Times, which was recently unveiled as partnering implementer of SLBC, was said to have indicated in its timeline that it could complete the work by the end of 2013, although that sounded “very optimistic” for Tarawally.
“But that doesn’t mean that it is insurmountable,” the Director of Communications said.
“Yes, 2015 is short, but by that time we will have gone a long way. We may not be able to cover the whole nation but we may have migrated,” he admitted.
Start Times though, it seems, has a long wait until a policy is in place, and when that will be is the big question.
National Security
For SLBC, Digital Migration comes with added pressure. Digital broadcasting will provide opportunity for enormous hours of programming, therefore not just content but quality content would be needed to satisfy the audience. The national broadcaster will need to invest in an area it has hardly got a pass mark on.
Sierra Leone is likely to switchover in phases, starting with Freetown, according to Hallowell who said that by the end of 2014 the country would have gotten into the second phase.
“But again it will all depend on government’s readiness,” he warned.
When Tanzania suddenly switched over, civil society activists protested against the national telecoms regulator and called for analogue transmission to run concurrently with digital broadcasting as most television owners could not afford sudden upgrade in terms of set top boxes. That did not only suggest a lack of preparedness, but it also showed Tanzania migrated in a rush. Countries like Sierra Leone may want to learn from that experience while noting the essence of time.
Migration is needed if not for anything but to meet international requirements. But switching over while just a handful of people can afford the set top boxes will mean depriving millions of people from accessing information, which will be a violation of the constitution (the right to information).
There are even bigger implications for the country if it fails to meet the 2015 deadline.
Experts say high powered transmission may lead to interference from neighbouring countries which could in turn create a compromise of national security due to its effect on sectors like broadcasting and telecommunications facilities, as well as maritime and aviation communications.
(C) Politico 27/08/13
