TechCentral reports that the South African Communications Forum (SACF), an industry body that includes broadcasters SABC and M-Net and signal distributor Sentech among its members, is lobbying government to include a return path mechanism in the digital terrestrial television (DTT) set-top boxes (STBs) that it plans to subsidise for the country’s poorer households. A return path will enable Internet and email access in these households once South Africa migrates from analogue broadcasting to DTT.
SACF CEO Loren Braithwaite-Kabosha is quoted in the article as saying that a return path in the STBs will help bridge the country’s digital divide.
It is estimated that adding a return path to the STB will only add about R40 to the cost of manufacturing each device. The STB is expected to be priced at R700.
The South African Bureau of Standards’ (SABS) final standard for the STB, which was published this April, excludes the requirement to include a return path in the basic specification. However, manufacturers could still build decoders that include support for a return path.
