Dataweek published an article late last year regarding the court case instituted by the free-to-air broadcaster e.tv against the Department of Communications (DoC). The DoC appealed, then subsequently withdrew the appeal, against the court’s ruling to overturn Communications Minister Dina Pule’s May 2012 decision to allow Sentech to handle set-top box (STB) controls.
The question on everyone’s lips is how severely these actions have affected the time frames around the STB manufacturing and rollout process. Will South Africa miss the international deadline for switchover to the digital terrestrial television (DTT) standard?
Dataweek spoke to the DoC’s spokesperson, Siya Qoza, and Rodger Warren, managing director of Altech UEC SA about the implications of the delays.
“The sooner that the DoC and the free-to-air broadcasters, e.tv and SABC, reach an amicable agreement, the shorter the anticipated delay will be in implementing the STB process,” said Warren.
The original adjudication of the appointment of manufacturers was originally set for December 2012, then revised to March 2013. The DoC has since requested the STB manufacturers to extend the validity of the RFP until mid-June 2013.
“The control mechanism is in the hands of the free-to-air broadcasters, who have not yet made public who will be involved,” added Warren. “The supply chain needs to be in place within the next four months and certification of the STBs needs to be clarified. In addition, SABS conformance tests need to be undertaken. However, because the laboratory is not yet completed, a delay on the RFP could ironically prove to be advantageous.”
Warren pointed out that there are 36 companies vying for the appointment as an STB manufacturer. “The impact on the larger companies, who are not reliant on the STB manufacture for their future sustainability, is minimal. However, the smaller companies may well be negatively affected should the delays continue for much longer.”
According to Warren, the manufacturers will need to produce significant volumes of boxes every month from the time the boxes are certified, in order to meet the switchover deadline.
Qoza is adamant that the rollout of STB manufacture will commence this year. “The International Telecommunication Commission’s deadline for switchover to DTT is June 2015 and we simply must be ready by then. The DoC, in a facilitatory capacity, together with ICASA, are in constant communication with e.tv and the SABC regarding the appointment of suitable control mechanism vendors and we are confident of an amicable resolution very soon.”
Communications Minister cries blackmail
Meanwhile, Minister Pule has lashed out not only at the Sunday Times and specific journalists who work for the newspaper, but also at those with “business and political interests related to the multi-billion rand set-top-box tender and related issues” as being complicit in a blackmail plot against her.
The backlash came in the wake of an article printed in the 21 April edition of the Sunday Times – the latest in a series of articles attacking Pule’s credibility and accusing her of corruption in an ever more colourful variety of forms. Proclaiming that “the mud throwers’ hands are not always clean”, she proceeded to scoop up a handful of her own and lob it in the direction of her accusers.
In addition to denying the allegations against her, Pule made the startling revelation that these articles have all been part of a sustained blackmail plot by the journalists in question, in cahoots with ‘their handlers’ whom she says are representatives of prominent organisations which are tendering for business relating to the manufacture of the set-top boxes required to facilitate South Africa’s transition from analog to digital television broadcast signals. When asked, Pule refused to name these companies or their representatives.
The goal of the alleged blackmail, Pule claimed, was to force her to make decisions in favour of these unnamed organisations, against the threat of creating sufficient uproar through a Sunday Times backed smear campaign as to make her position untenable.
At the time of writing, Pule was due to appear before a Parliament ethics committee on the 2nd and 3rd of May in relation to an investigation into her alleged misconduct.
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