Japan Hands Over Set Top Boxes To Botswana

The Embassy of Japan in Botswana has announced that 15,000 Set-Top Boxes (STBs) initially planned for delivery by the Government of Japan were handed over to the Government of Botswana on July 6, 2021. The handover of the STBs follows a decision taken by the Government of Botswana in February 2013, when it announced that it would adopt the Japanese standard for its Digital Terrestrial Television (DTV) to be first broadcast by Botswana Television (Btv). “It is notable that Botswana is the first country on the African continent that adopted the Japanese standard for its DTV. Since then, the Botswana government has been making efforts to shift from analogue broadcasting to DTV and Japan has been assisting Botswana’s digital TV transition.”

After analogue switch-off, there will be a vacancy of the frequency band, which can be used for 4G, 5G, IoT (Internet of things) and more in order to shape Botswana as a knowledge-based economy in the future. Moreover, the Botswana government has also been working on the utilisation of data broadcasting.

Through the data broadcasting services, people can watch real-time traffic news, weather forecasts, information on public safety, natural disasters, and more while watching TV. Furthermore, another remarkable feature of the Japanese standard DTV is the emergency warning broadcasting system (EWBS) function. With EWBS, an emergency alert goes off and an announcement automatically comes out of the STB from its built-in speaker even when a TV itself is switched off.

Whilst, recognising there was a concern that vulnerable people such as persons who are economically underprivileged or those living with disability may have not been able to purchase STBs to access digital TV services, the Government of Japan decided last year to provide STBs for the aforementioned people in Botswana. On April 20, 2020, the Government of Japan and the Government of Botswana signed the grant aid agreement amounting to ¥150 million (approximately P17 million) for distributing 15,000 STBs (i.e. receivers) for the deployment of DTV in Botswana.

Since then, the first and second deliveries of STBs were already made from Japan to the Department of Broadcasting Services, the Ministry for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Service, and approximately 1,700 devices have already been distributed to households in Tsabong, Maun, Gantsi and Kasane, and with the third and last dispatch this time, all remaining will be distributed to other families in Botswana by December this year. It is expected that this cooperation will contribute to mitigating information disparity caused by income inequality, so as to lead to improvement of quality of life in Botswana.