Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has urged South Africans to buy new television sets before the printed digital migration kicks in.
Ntshavheni briefed the media on Thursday following a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruling on the digital migration.
Last month, the ConCourt dominated that authorities’s deadline for the nationwide switch-off from analogue to digital to be unconstitutional and illegal.
The judgment got here after e.television appealed the Pretoria High Court’s dismissal of its bid to cease the 30 June 2022 deadline for the migration.
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The earlier deadline was 31 March 2022.
E.television had argued towards the swap off, saying it might end in tens of millions of poor households being lower off as a result of they don’t have entry to set-top packing containers (STBs) to entry digital television.
The ConCourt additionally dominated that the imposed deadline of 31 October 2021 for indigent households to register for STBs was unconstitutional, because the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies didn’t take the required steps to make sure that the general public was adequately knowledgeable.
Closing date
During Thursday’s briefing, Ntshavheni famous the ConCourt’s judgment and introduced the brand new cut-off date for STBs purposes in addition to registrations.
“This week, I’ll publish via a authorities gazette a public discover of the thirtieth of September 2022 because the cut-off date for purposes and registrations for presidency backed set-top packing containers for qualifying indigent households.
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“The 31st of October 2021 deadline was provisional as qualifying households could still apply for STBs after, but the 30th of September 2022 is the final deadline, and no applications will be considered after this date,” she mentioned.
The minister additional known as on all analogue customers to swap to digital.
“I will also inform members of the public and non-indigent households who are still watching analogue TV, of my intention to switch-off analogue and urge them to purchase compliant digital television sets from retail market. The compliant digital TV set is identified through the Go-Digital logo,” Ntshavheni mentioned.
STB installations
Ntshavheni mentioned that the SABC analogue transmission has been switched off within the Free State, the Northern Cape, the North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, with Sentech having accomplished the restacking of the spectrum.
However, till the analogue switch-off is accomplished within the 4 remaining provinces, specifically Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, the digital migration can’t be accomplished.
STB installations have been accomplished within the Free State, the Northern Cape, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
“The Constitutional Court has accepted that subsidized set-top-boxes can only be provided to those who apply and qualify for such assistance,” Ntshavheni identified.
All provinces, the minister revealed, have been accomplished STB installations excluding KZN And Eastern Cape, which have been affected by the April floods.
As of June, roughly 94, 113 qualifying households stay unconnected in KZN And Eastern Cape though connections have been persevering with at a gradual tempo.
“We commenced with installations for households that registered by the end of March 2022 in the five provinces that have completed installations of 31 October 2021 registrations, but Western Cape and North-West are yet to commence,” she additional mentioned.
“To date now we have put in STBs to 56,354 households that registered by the top of March 2022 with Free State and Northern Cape already on mop-up phases.
“We will commence connecting the end of June registrations as and when we complete end of March targets in provinces,” the minister added.
Registrations
The whole variety of households that had registered for the subsidised decoders reached 260,868 between November and March.
This represents about 52,000 registrations every month.
Meanwhile, the variety of STB registrations had slowed to 49,385 from April to June, which 16,461 per thirty days.
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Ntshavheni highlighted that the interval between the day of the publishing of the federal government gazette and shutting date was ample for the final registrations given the slowdown within the variety of purposes.
She added that she is going to consider the overall variety of new registrations “against the progress with installations and commence consultations with affected parties” on the brand new analogue switched-off date.