Millions of Nigerians will likely contend with disruptive television signal interference from neighbouring countries from June 16.
This will be as a result of the failure of successive governments to empower the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to meet the much anticipated June 17 deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for the transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting.
Parts of Nigeria that could be most affected by signal disruptions include those sitting close to the border with Niger Republic, Benin and Cameroon, especially since these nations are likely to achieve migration ahead of Nigeria.
Digital Broadcasting Migration (DBM) is a process in which broadcasting services offered on the traditional analogue technology are replaced with digital based networks over a specific period.
Experts say digital broadcasting will offer the viewing public sharper picture quality, with reduced ‘ghosting’ and interference. Beyond that, the audio signal is much clearer, so TV viewers will enjoy improved sound quality.
Nigerian TV viewers will not enjoy these benefits because the appropriate infrastructure and financial resources are not available to aid to the migration process, experts have said.
It became evident last week that the country would not meet the ITU deadline when Emeka Mba, director-general of the NBC said that the earliest possible date for Nigeria to switch over from analogue to digital broadcasting is December 2017.
This also implies that Nigerians, especially those living in close proximity to the borders with neighbouring countries may have to contend with disruptive signals for the next 18 months.
With about a month to the June 2015 deadline, Mba had also explained at a media forum held in Abuja, that three years into the process of digitisation, with zero allocation from the government and myriads of challenges before the NBC, such as aggregate content development, distribution and production, as well as unavailability of Set Top Boxes (STBs), the June 17 deadline was really uncertain. Speaking at a workshop organised for members of the National Assembly by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Lagos recently, Stephen Bello, former acting executive vice chairman of the NCC, said the country was bound to miss the deadline because local manufacture or massive importation of STBs were yet to commence.
According to industry experts familiar with the situation, the STBs would enable the present analogue TV sets to receive digital signals if there was a switch over in 2015.
“Digital broadcasting is coming upstream, but the 2015 target for switchover to digital television is not achievable. Transmitting stations may be able to broadcast digital TV signals, but 90 percent of television sets will not be able to receive the signals”, explained Bello. François Rancy,the ITU’s director of Radio Communication Bureau, had earlier warned that the June 17 date, as set by the Regional Conference, could not be changed or extended.
Rancy noted that “No revision of the agreement shall be undertaken except by a competent regional radio communication conference convened in accordance with the procedure laid down in the constitution and convention, to which all the member states in the planning area shall be invited.”
While lamenting the inability of Nigeria to meet the ITU’s deadline, Mba explained that it took the United Kingdom (UK) a few attempts over about 14 years and nearly £6.4 billion to digitise broadcasting, but said that Nigeria need not take such length of time, if funds are made available and resources, efficiently managed.
The Federal Government is yet to release the N60 billion to the NBC, a figure long earmarked as the cost of the Digital Switchover (DSO) process in the country.
There are concerns amongst stakeholders in the telecoms industry. Market observers are however of the view that digital migration will free up requisite frequency spectrum under the control of the NBC, which the NCC can then clean up and re-allocate to deserving operators for the deployment of efficient and affordable broadband services.
The country has an abysmal broadband penetration level, at 10 percent.
Ben Uzor
