The deadline for digital migration in Africa will end in 2015, and experts have been discussing how important the process means to African countries.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has already said that the digital migration will release more bandwidth or spaces for mobile phones to use in order to avoid mobile congestion especially with the emergence of smartphones and tablets such as Ipad, Galaxy Tab among others.
The African Telecommunication Union (ATU), an affiliate to the ITU, believes that the process of the migration which is through broadcasting will be cheaper despite early concerns that it will be expensive to switch to digital from analogue.
In an exclusive interview with ghanabusinessnews.com in Accra, the Secretary General of the ATU, Mr Soumaila Abdoulkarim says one of such benefits is that the use of digital broadcasting will be cheaper.
“At the beginning we said that it is too expensive but in any way it will be cheaper because the equipment will be available…the manufacturers will bring us the equipment and we will choose the quality ones,” Mr Abdoulkarim told ghanabusinessnews.com.
He says once Africa chooses a common standard, there will be no problem with acquiring equipment for the migration process.
“We want Africa to choose a common standard that will not be expensive for us,” he said.
He however emphasized the need for digital broadcasting saying “One is to give a new chance to Africa to listen on broadcasting to digital televison which we know is better than analogue TV… and also we have what we call the digital dividend migration, from that we would have some redundant bandwidth or space for the telecommunications operators to use.”
Mr Abdoulkarim indicated that the regional body is indeed preparing to hold a high-level meeting in Nairobi, Kenya where its headquarters is located, in September this year.
“In line with that, we are preparing to have a high-level meeting on September 6-8, 2011 in Nairobi…this meeting will be for the Ministers responsible for ICT and broadcasting and stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and we will discuss ways of having a common position on how African countries can deal with digital migration and adopt a common standard,” he told ghanabusinessnews.com.
He said Africa will feel the impact of the migration in a positive way.
By Ekow Quandzie