Digital broadcasting: Set-top box raises issues as new deadline approaches

Nigeria is expected to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting on June 17, 2017, but some stakeholders in the industry believe it will be difficult to meet the deadline because of some issues around the set-top box. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), however, maintains the country’s analogue broadcast will transit to digital next year.  A […]

Nigeria is expected to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting on June 17, 2017, but some stakeholders in the industry believe it will be difficult to meet the deadline because of some issues around the set-top box. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), however, maintains the country’s analogue broadcast will transit to digital next year.
 A set-top box converts a digital television signal to analogue for viewing on a conventional set, or enables cable or satellite television to be viewed.
 The device will enable Nigerians download digital television programmes to millions of TV sets when digital broadcasting finally replaces analogue.
 Daily Trust has gathered that the importation and delivery of set-top boxes by contractors hired by the NBC have been enmeshed in controversies that may affect the timely switch-over.
 One of the concerns raised is the alleged modification made to the set-top boxes imported into the country. It is feared the modification will make millions of Nigerian TV viewers looking forward to the benefits of the digital switch-over (DSO) through the set-top boxes pay conditional access fees every year, apart from the initial prices of the devices. This, as Mr Francis Kobe, the chairman Digital Monitors Forum, said, is not done in countries where the DSO had already taken place.
 Kobe said Nigerians would pay the fee even for free-to-air broadcast programmes, contrary to international best practices and the universally approved rights of digital TV viewers.
 He also said the set-top boxes imported by the NBC’s assigned contractors would force Nigerians to dump their digital TV sets with built-in tuners because, as he explained, they would not have access to digital broadcasts as expected.
“In other countries, governments make provisions to ensure that majority of TV viewers are not victimized by the digital switch-over. In the United States, the government subsidized the purchase of digital converter boxes to allow the television to receive digital broadcasts. But now they want to force Nigerians to pay for something that should be free”, he said.
 But NBC’s Director of Public Affairs, Malam Awalu Salihu, told Daily Trust that only those he described as “disgruntled stakeholders” are raising eyebrows on the set-top boxes.
 Salihu said though it is true that viewers would pay annual access fee, “this is to enable the digital content providers sustain their business as government would not be able to pay for all their efforts.”
 He said more than 50,000 of the set-top boxes had already been imported, and some had been taken to Jos, Plateau State where the pilot study will hold.
He put the total number of set-top boxes expected before June 2017 as 24 million, being the total number of TV households in the country.
 Salihu maintained that the delivery of more than 50,000 boxes by SMK Engineering Limited and Gospell Digital Technology Limited proved that the Commission was serious about Nigeria going digital.
 A statement earlier sent to Daily Trust by the NBC had quoted the Managing Director of Gospell Digital Technology Limited and chairman, Set-Top Boxes Manufacturing Association of Nigeria, Godfrey Ohuabunwa, as saying that the boxes were of high standard boxes and among the best in the West African sub-region.
  However, an official of the Ministry of Information, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed to Daily Trust that the minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had received a lot of petitions from some stakeholders in the industry who believe the DSO affair is not being handled well by the NBC.
The official said Mohammed, who has promised that Nigeria would certainly meet the June 2017 DSO date, has vowed to address some of the issues raised in the petition.
 “He also promised to address some of the knotty issues that plagued the DSO implementation process under the former DG”, the source said.
 The country had in June 2015 missed the first deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for all countries to transit from analogue television broadcasting to digital in order to free spectrum for internet and telecommunications use across the world.