Ghana to check e-waste dumping as America, Europe migrate to digital TV
The Ministry of Communications is collaborating with the security agencies to check the dumping of e-waste into the country from Europe and America.
The Sector Minister, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said the move was necessary now because it came at a time when Europe and America had migrated to the digital television, the analogue television sets were likely to find their way into the country to choke the markets.
Mr Iddrisu said this when a committee, National Digital Broadcasting Migration Technical Committee, presented its report to the ministry at a short ceremony in Accra.
The 26-member committee was tasked to make policy recommendations to the government to enable the country to achieve a cost effective and timely migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.
The committee, under the leadership of the National Communications Authority (NCA), comprises representatives of all stakeholder ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs); industry players and educational institutions.
Ghana signed the Geneva 2006 (GE06) Agreement, establishing the Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting Plan in the bands 174 – 230 MHz and 470 – 862 MHz at the Regional Radio Communications Conference (RRC-06).
The Agreement set June 17, 2015 as the deadline for the cessation of international protection for analogue broadcasting transmissions in the said bands.
The migration from analogue to digital television broadcasting is expected to have an impact on almost every citizen of this country,considering the pervasiveness of television access and the reliance of the populace on TV for information dissemination, education and entertainment.
This report focuses on the migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT).
Compared with terrestrial analogue television, DTT offers an improved spectrum efficiency which can be used to provide a variety of new services such as mobility, interactivity, high-definition TV, enhanced video and audio quality, as well as increased programme choice.
The key benefit of digital broadcast technologies is that they use the scarce national radio frequency spectrum more efficiently than analogue technologies.
This means that existing broadcasting services can be provided using less of the radio frequency spectrum they currently occupy.
Digital broadcasting also facilitates the delivery of e-government services, the opportunity for developing new skills, the creation of new jobs and new investment opportunities.
The Committee identified that there was no single worldwide standard for digital broadcasting.
The committee recommended among others, the adoption of DVB-T (EN 300 744) for terrestrial digital television broadcasting, in accordance with the decisions taken at RRC-06 because it had been proven to deliver all the benefits expected from digital broadcasting.
DVB-T has also been proven to deliver all the functionalities that ISDB, the Japanese standard, can offer.
The implementation of this technical standard would strengthen the resolve of member states of ECOWAS to harmonise their policies relate to the migration to digital broadcasting for proper co-ordination of frequencies.
Mr Iddrisu said the government was committed to ensuring that Ghana did not become the recipient of analogue television sets, and old computers and their accessories from any part of the world.
He said by 2013, the transition should be over for the country to fully accept the digital era adding “the government will ensure that the recommendations in the report were implemented to ensure a smooth process”.
Mr Idrrisu said the government would renew the licenses of all the television stations in the country to enable them to make them compliant as far as the changeover is concerned.
Source: Daily Graphic