08 Aug 2017

Department of Broadcasting Services (DBS) chief engineer, Mr Calvin Goiletswe says Analogue Terrestrial Television transmission services switch off rehearsal is underway.

In an interview, Mr Goiletswe said DBS alongside their digital migration project associates; Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA) used the rehearsal exercise as a preliminary stage before turning off the analogue signals.  

This exercise, he said started in Ghanzi, “we are starting in Ghanzi because it is small, so it is doable,” he said.

He explained that they recently conducted a survey for households who were viewing analogue terrestrial television broadcasting, from August 4-7 in Ghanzi, and youth from Ghanzi were engaged to help carrying out the survey.

“Previously, we held a successful kgotla meeting to inform the community about the survey,” Mr Goiletswe stated.

The survey, he said, targeted only households using aerials or analogue signals.

During Ghanzi analogue switch rehearsal scheduled end of September, he further explained that they will try to identify more households using analogue signals they could have omitted during the survey.

Mr Goiletswe said their hope was to do analogue turn off afterwards.

However, he underscored that for them to do analogue twitch off, 65 per cent of households who were initially using analogue terrestrial television transmission services should be able to receive digital transmission, as per SADC requirement.

Hence, he stated that they would make efforts to encourage those who were selling set-top boxes to reach every area in the country.

Mr Goiletswe revealed that Botswana Communication Regulatory Authority has already given seven companies green light to sell set top boxes. ENDS