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Patrick Chitumba in Victoria Falls
Thousands of households will be forced to dispose of their television sets or buy costly equipment that enables them to watch digital content when the country migrates from analogue to digital, Sadc Director, Infrastructure and Services, Remmy Makumbe has said.
Addressing members of the media yesterday, Makumbe said in nine months time a lot of people will be forced to purchase set up boxes to enable their old televisions sets to screen digitalised content.
“A lot of TV sets would be required to have set-up boxes. It is however a daunting task for the people with low incomes but we have advised governments on possible ways of dealing with the issue,” he said.
Makumbe said the viewer could buy his or her own digital device.
“The governments can also chip in by subsidising set up boxes like what other countries have done. Or governments can identify highly vulnerable populations like those in the rural areas and provide them with free set up boxes. Other countries have done it,” he said.
Makumbe said there was, however, need for a policy to be put in place in the member countries so that the people are not left out.
According to the encyclopaedia, a set-top box is necessary for television viewers who wish to use their current analog television sets to receive digital broadcasts.
The service to which the set-top box is attached may be through a telephone line as, for example, with WebTV or through a cable TV company. Other countries that have migrated from analogue have had millions of homes using digital set-top boxes since 2006.
Makumbe said Sadc countries were faced with a serious resource challenge to roll out the analogue migration.
However, Zimbabwe as well as other countries like Mozambique, Angola, and Namibia may fail to meet the 2015 International Telecommunications Union deadline to digitalise.
“The countries that are nearing digitalisation are South Africa and Seychelles. Other countries might fail to meet the deadline because of lack of resources,” he said.
Meanwhile, Makumbe said the region had a shortfall of about 16,000MW of power.
He said as a result, the bloc was looking for $40 billion between now and 2018 to have power generating projects to avert more load shedding.
Online Reporter