The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) and South Africa’s Department of Communications (DOC) have re-affirmed their commitment towards playing a lead role in ensuring that the continent of Africa passes through a smooth transition from analogue to digital broadcasting. This commitment revolves around the CTO-organised 5th Annual Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum 2010, which runs in Johannesburg from 21 to 23 April.
At the Forum, policy makers, communications regulators, broadcast technology engineers, equipment manufacturers, solution vendors and electronic media practitioners from Africa and beyond will discuss strategies to accelerate the continent’s digital switchover. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has set the deadline for the analogue switch-off for 2015.
With the Forum’s theme “Accelerating your Digital Migration’, progress made by African countries over the past years will be revealed. In addition, effective ways of building on the existing foundation to meet the objectives of the switchover will be proposed.
Commenting on the partnership the Acting Director General of the DOC Themba Phiri said his department is honoured and pleased to be a joint host of this important event on the ICT calendar. “We believe our efforts will assist governments and industry to work towards achieving desired results in the migration process from analogue to digital television broadcasting.’
On his part Bashir Patel, Director of Programmes and Business Development at CTO said the CTO recognises that South Africa is a leader in digital switchover in Africa, and believes that other African countries have a lot to learn from South Africa. He said it is certainly of great value to have the DOC as a partner in the CTO’s facilitative role of creating knowledge sharing platforms such as the Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum to equip stakeholders to take on the challenges associated with the migration in their respective countries. “This year’s conference promises to be unique in the sense that it takes place just before the 2010 World Cup finals, creating a perfect timing to make full use of the country’s dual illumination facilities,’ Mr Patel concluded.
The event has already received support from companies such as Telkom (Pty) Ltd, AT&T, SES World Skies, NDS, Farncombe Consulting Group, Net Insight, Alan Dick and Next Generation Broadcasting.
For more information visit www.cto.int
