Report: Combination of Infrastructure Will Drive Faster DSO in Africa

Following the delay in transiting from analogue to digital broadcasting, otherwise known as Digital Switch Over (DSO) among African counties, Nigeria inclusive, Eutelsat has released a white paper on Africa DSO, suggesting that a combination of satellite, mobile and terrestrial infrastructure, will help African countries achieve faster DSO at significantly reduced cost.

The transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting in Africa has so far been a slow and laborious process, even in the most developed countries.

Only six African nations have actually completed the switchover from analogue to digital television broadcasting, and Nigeria is not yet there, still trying to find its feet.

In 2006, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nation agency, issued the Geneva 2006 agreement, signalling the develop- ment of ‘all-digital’ terrestrial television services. The motivation behind the transition was to stimulate Information and Communications Technology (ICT) applications and make more efficient use of spectrum through the digital dividend that comes with the phasing out analogue television.

Since the ITU declaration in Geneva 2006 on DSO, Nigeria had thrice, missed the deadline it had set for itself in 2012, 2015 and 2017, as well as most African countries.

Citing the main challenges to digital transition in the released white paper, the Vice President, Global Sales and Commercial Development for Video Business at Eutelsat, Christoph Limmer, said: “The main challenge to deploying nationwide Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) is to manage timely and equitable switchover for everyone in order not to create a digital divide that separates the homes with digital from the homes left only with analogue. The challenge is particularly steep for coun- tries with a large landmass, mountain ranges or islands that typically remain beyond range of terrestrial networks, or with interference issues in border regions.”

According to him, most terrestrial operators deploy fibre networks and DTT towers on the basis of return on investment, meaning they concentrate on areas with a certain population density and they neglect users in more rural or semi-rural areas. This means there is a real risk that exclusive use of terrestrial technologies can permanently leave too many consumers beyond range of the benefits of digital, he said, insisting that digital homes will grow to 75 million by 2021, if there is a smooth rollout of digital transition. Citing funding as another challenge, Limmer said the cost of a nationwide DTT network is often underestimated and can put the break on switchover. The lack of attractive local content to fill up the channels that have been made available by DTT projects and funding for a public awareness campaign are also major setbacks that need to be overcome.

The white paper however suggested cost-effective and time-efficient solutions that can resolve the challenges, notably hybrid networks that use terrestrial as the basic platform and satellites to deliver channels to terrestrial towers and directly to homes beyond range of digital reception.

Analysing the benefits of digital broadcasting, the white paper noted that the transition from analogue to digital TV is a logical development for the broadcasting industry, bringing significant advantages for all players across the value chain, such as the opportunity to transform the diversity, signal quality and reach of channels into viewer homes; opportunity to generate infrastructure upgrades and stimulate Africa’s vibrant content creation industry; and release of analogue frequencies for other applications such as mobile services.

According to the white paper, whereas terrestrial is histori- cally a dominant broadcasting platform, satellite is uniquely positioned to complement terrestrial infrastructure, by extending digital TV to homes in more remote or less populated areas. Satellite broadcasting calls for no additional massive civil engineering investment, since vast regions, including rural areas, islands and border areas are automatically and ubiquitously covered.

The white paper explained that most governments that have embarked on DTT have quickly understood that, as content and signal quality progress and the number of towers grows, the efficiency of satellites for content distribution comes into play. There is in fact a crossing point where the cost of bringing content from a central hub to more than a dozen towers is less expensive and more reliable via satellite than by fibre. Environmental conditions or the risk of outages and fibre cuts can even make the reliability of terrestrial infrastructure an issue, the white paper report added.