Updated List Released: Set Top Box Tender

The lasted round of tenderers have been released for the Request for Proposal (RFP) from Service Providers in respect of Digital Set-Top Box (STB) Production for Local Manufacturing Companies for Government Subsidised TV Owning Households.

See updated list below:

Digital Migration Broadcasting to Empower Women

Addressing The New Age Business briefing on Monday, Minister of Communications Dina Pule told delegates that the digital migration project will provide ample opportunities for women.

“In the department we are talking about migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting, which in itself puts women into a position of advantage,” Pule said.

Opportunities for women

Minister Pule said the process of digital migration from analogue to digital brings three fundamental direct opportunities for women in the private and public sectors- content, manufacturing decoders and new media owners.

“One is that when we move from analogue to digital broadcasting it means that we are going to have more channels- it means that we are going to need more content and we want women to place themselves in positions where they can begin to train young women to be able to produce content for those (new) channels.

The minister said her department also wants women to lead in one of the new channel, she added that there must also be a dedicated channel for women and young women in particular, an announcement applauded by the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulama Xingwana at the event.

“We must have a channel for young women, a channel for health”.

“Two, it means that we are going to produce or manufacture decoders, which we call in our language ‘set-top boxes’- we don’t want to see men there manufacturing- we want women to participate in that space, there will be a lot of money because once we move to digital broadcasting, on a daily basis we will need a decoder,” Pule said.

Minister said she hopes women have been following on what the department of Communications is doing in the digital migration space.

Pule added (as a third opportunity) that government wanted women to be able to access spectrum, only then can women begin to say we want to open our own TV channels and their own radio stations ( either at local or regional level).
She encouraged women to explore opportunities in commercial community Television.

ICTs can empower women in rural and remote areas

Minister of Communications used the business briefing to appeal to women leaders in State Owned Enterprises to prioritise on empowerment of women in rural areas.

Minister Pule said providing skills development to young women was the best place to start women empowerment, and said it was everybody’s task to ensure that young women understand that there are careers in the ICT environment.

She said gone are those days where young people, especially girls, would end up being web masters, young women have to go into broadcast engineers, IT engineers, and financial services to grow and develop in these areas.

“The ICT environment offers no barriers to entry for women but the industry does too little to encourage them to take up a career in the sector,”  Adrian Schofield, Applied Research Unit Manager, Joburg Centre for Software Engineering at Wits University told The New Age on Monday.

The ICT industry together with government has to work harder to create an enabling environment to the growth and development of women.

 “The education system is also deficient in providing young people with the knowledge and skills that would encourage them to pursue the ICT sector as a career,” Schofield said.

Schofield, who is also the president of Computer Society South Africa and Chairman of the African Federation of ICT Associations, believes that an overall percentage of women intake (careers) in the ICT sector was probably 20% or less.

The ICT industry is not doing enough to empower women, according to Schofield "it is a serious cultural challenge to be overcome".

Although State-owned enterprises like SA Broadcasting Corporation, Sentech, and the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA plays a key role in facilitating the delivery of digital broadcasting to the country, women are expected to play a leading role.

“There are many role models of women around the world and in South Africa achieving the highest positions in the industry but this does not seems to inspire local interest”, Schofield said.

Minister Pule, who heads one of the most critical departments in the country, addressed The New Age Business Briefing on Empowering Women in Business together with Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities Lulama Xingwana, Business Women's Association President (BWA) Kunyalala Maphisa, Telkom CEO Nombulelo Moholi, CEO of National Empowerment Fund Philisiwe Buthelezi, and Petro SA CEO Nosizwe Nokwe.

To what extent are women prepared to lead in what deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe called “the second African Telecoms Revolution”?

To explore opportunities in science and technology with special focus on SKA project, join The New Age on 31st of August for an interactive session with Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor.  

 - phutim@thenewage.co.za

 - http://www.thenewage.co.za/59602-9-53-Digital_migration_broadcasting_to_empower_women

Launch of Set-Top Box Standard Brings Digital TV Closer

As South Africa gets ready to migrate to digital TV in September, authorities have unveiled standards for the manufacture of decoders that will provide digital signal for old TV sets. 

On Wednesday, 6 June, the Department of Communications together with the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) launched the Set-Top Box decoder standard (SANS862:2012) for free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) at the inaugural ICT Indaba that took place in Cape Town.

The Set Top Box is a receiver that will decode the digital signal to enable the channels to be displayed on your analogue television set. This Set Top Box will plug directly into your TV set.Migrating to digital TV, will give you a brighter, sharper picture and much better sound quality; like moving from the old video cassette to a DVD.

All television sets will be compatible with the STB either via the RF/Aerial input in older television sets, or via the RCA/audio and video inputs in modern television sets.The STB decoder operates in conjunction with an analogue television receiver minimising additional expense for the public whilst providing good quality video and sound.

Significantly, the announcement means that South Africa will now comply with the 2006 resolution of the Regional Radio Communication Conference (RRC-06) hosted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), as all countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran need to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting services by 2015. 

Source: http://www.services.gov.za/services/content/Home

Set-top boxes to Get Internet Access

Communications minister Dina Pule said on Wednesday that the set-top boxes that will be subsidised for poorer households will get a “return path” to provide basic Internet access. She made the announcement at the department of communications’ ICT Indaba in Cape Town.

South Africans will be required to purchase set-top boxes as the country migrates from analogue to digital terrestrial television.

Government has said it will subsidise 5m of the boxes as part of the migration process. Set-top boxes convert digital signals into analogue ones so that legacy equipment without a digital receiver can still be used.

The SA Communications Forum (SACF), an industry lobby group that has been pushing hard for a return path to be included in the boxes, praised the minister’s decision, saying it would provide Internet access “for the masses of economically marginalised South Africans”.

The SACF contends that the inclusion of Internet access in the set-top box specification requirements is “the best opportunity to bridge the digital divide” and says it wishes to “congratulate the minister for her strong leadership in grasping this once-off opportunity”.

“This decision means that SA, which had been lagging behind in Internet penetration on the continent, will move swiftly ahead in its goals to achieve universal access and ICT competitiveness.”

Pule has not yet provided a reason for her decision or elaborated on the technical specifications of the return path and what impact it might have on the digital migration process.  — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media

Source: http://www.techcentral.co.za/set-top-boxes-to-get-interet-access/32487/

Set-Top-Box RFP in Two Weeks

The Department of Communications says it will issue a Request For Proposal (RFP) for Set-Top-Box manufacturing in two weeks.

Speaking at a media briefing at the ICT Indaba in Cape Town, Communications DG, Rosey Sekese said the manufacturing process would kick-off once all processes were concluded.

Sekese noted that while the DOC would subsidise STBs for poorer households – the final cost of the STBS would be determined by market competition and the RFP process.

Earlier this year, the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) released draft manufacturing standards for STBs for public comment. The standards body has now released final standards for the digital migration process.

SA has adopted the DVB-T2 standard and has a September deadline for the availability of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) services.

Source http://saitnews.co.za/e-government/weeks/

Statement on the launch of the SABS Set Top Box standard at the ICT Indaba in Cape Town.

06 June 2012

Thank you for your presence.

I'd like to express my appreciation of the relationship we have. We view the media as one of our key stakeholders in this government's efforts to transform our society.

Indeed, we shall stop at nothing in ensuring that our citizens' lives are progressively improved.

We have to feed off this incredible energy generated by the conversations we have had over the past two and a half days. All the building blocks that we need to build a prosperous society are in place.

The world and our continent, in particular, have humbled us with their willingness to share their experiences and best practices. We have also shared our learnings from the formative years of our democracy.

This conference has strengthened our resolve to investing in developmental infrastructure. This infrastructure has to be delivered in partnership with the private sector.

Universal access to infrastructure will enable governments to deliver e-services of high quality such as e-health and e-education to rural areas.

The two Inter-Ministerial meetings have highlighted the need to address education challenges from primary schools up to tertiary levels. These are the areas that we’ll focus our energies on in relation to e-learning.

This conference also highlighted the need to harness Africa's human capital in technology to fast track socio-economic development and economic growth. An investment in developing people will result in greater innovation. We have to find our own solutions to the developmental challenges we face. Of course, we have chosen to do so in partnership with Africa and the rest of the world.

This is the context through which we should view the launch of the Set Top Box standard today. It is one of the milestones that we have reached in the broadcasting digital migration process.

Thank Chairperson of the SA Bureau of Standards, Bahle Sibisi and your team.

The standard is the latest demonstration of this government’s commitment to ensuring that the digital migration process starts later this year.

The launch of the standard also helps us to answer the question that many people have been asking about our ability to meet the targets for delivering Digital Terrestrial Television. My answer is that we are on track.

Through this standard, we are inviting local manufactures to be innovative, within this framework, to deliver decoders that will improve the television experience of our citizens.

We have always insisted that we want our products to compete with the best in the world.

Other milestones of this conference include the initiation of the process to close the gap between policy development and input from stakeholders, particularly SMEs and business.

At the plenary and at the Inter Ministerial meetings, we have identified the regulatory bottlenecks that we need to eliminate if we are to extract the maximum benefit from the use of technology to improve the quality of life of poor people in the developing world.

Harmonising ICT policies and regulations in the continent is the first step in encouraging innovation that will boost the economy and benefit the poor and SMEs.

As we march towards achieving a prosperous information society and knowledge economy, we need to be mindful of the challenges that could derail our efforts.

Two such challenges are cybercrime and the high cost to communication in the continent.

Access to broadband is meaningless if it is not affordable to the majority who are willing to use it.

We are concerned about the high cost to communication, in particularly international roaming costs.

We need to find ways to lower these costs because they can hinder development.

Industries such as Business Process Outsourcing can flourish in the continent if we work hard to create an enabling market environment for it.

Tomorrow, we shall issue a Statement of Intent from the ministers who have gathered here over the past two and a half days.

That statement will elaborate on the points I have made and all other areas we have discussed.

Thank you. 

Request For Information: DTT Set-Top Box (STB) Production by Local Manufacturing Companies

The Department of Communications has published a list of all the companies who submitted proposals for Request For Information: DTT Set-Top Box (STB) Production by local manufacturing companies.

A total of 36 bids have been received in the Department of Communications’ (DoC's) quest to source a company for the local manufacturing of set-top boxes (STBs) required for South Africa’s digital migration.

This followed the DoC’s request for information from local manufacturing companies for digital terrestrial television (DTT) STB production.

Potential manufacturers had until April 30 to respond.

The government aimed to subsidise STBs for about five-million households that were unable to afford STBs. This was estimated to cost about R2.45-billion.

Subsidisation qualification criteria were currently being finalised by the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa for the qualifying television-owning households.

The DoC claimed there were about 11.5-million television-owning households in South Africa, of which 72% rely on free-to-air broadcasting services.

The local manufacture of STBs is the second phase of a three-phase project, which included the simultaneous roll-out of physical broadcasting network equipment and the distribution of STBs.

The DoC said it would launch digital migration in the third quarter of this year and the analogue transmission would be switched off on December 31, 2013, after which analogue television sets would require an STB to receive the digital broadcast signal.

Source: http://www.doc.gov.za; http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/bids-pour-in-for-stb-manufacture-tender-2012-05-10

Digital broadcasting on track: Minister | The New Age Online

Phuti Mosomane and Sapa

The switch to digital television broadcasting is on track, Communications Minister Dina Pule told MPs on Tuesday.

"I want to affirm to this House that we are on course on the DTT [digital terrestrial television] process," she said in the opening debate on her department's budget in the National Assembly.Pule said "substantial progress" had been made during the past financial year towards implementation of the broadcasting digital migration policy.The deadline for the switch - which will require television viewers to purchase a set-top box (STB) to interpret the digital signal -- is June 2015.On the STBs, Pule said there was enough capacity to manufacture these locally."We shall finalise the selection process of suitable STB manufacturers in the first quarter of this financial year."The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa had started to finalise DTT regulations."It is envisaged that the final gazette will be published in June 2012."Pule said the SA Broadcasting Corporation, Sentech, and the Universal Service and Access Agency of SA would play a key role in helping the department to deliver digital broadcasting to the country.Sentech had already achieved digital signal coverage to more than 60 percent of the population on the DVB-T2 transmission standard."We have launched the DTT awareness campaign, where we are educating the South African public to understand what digital broadcasting means, and the need for them to take action," Pule said.Implementation of digital broadcasting migration has been topical recently as the switch-over date approaches.

Addressing The New Age Business briefing in March, Pule said the migration to digital TV meant that people would get better quality pictures and sound and a wider content offering on their devices.

“We are on course to launch digital migration in the third quarter of this year. State-owned enterprises like the SABC, Sentech, Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (Usaasa) will play a key role in assisting the department to deliver digital broadcasting in the country. Sentech has already achieved digital signal coverage of 60% of the population,” she said.With digital migration she said the government wants to facilitate the entry of 1000 SMMEs into the electronics manufacturing sector.“These SMMEs would either compete or cooperate with existing and larger electronics manufacturers. The decoders will be manufactured locally,” Pule said.phutim@thenewage.co.za

Source: Digital broadcasting on track: minister | The New Age Online