Botswana uncertain of transmission standard

Cabinet is still to decide on which of the two digital transmission technology standards Botswana should adopt, Botswana Guardian has been told.

This delay has now brought fear that Botswana may not be able to meet the June 2015 set date for the world to migrate to digital television broadcasting. This is in view of the fact that it has taken over 10 years for such developed economies as United Kingdom to migrate to digital transmission despite being well resourced.

The two standards are Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial (DVBT) mainly used in Europe and Integrated Services Digital Broadcast- Terrestrial (ISDBT) used by the likes of Brazil and Japan. Although it is clear that many countries are left behind, government spokesperson, Jeff Ramsay believes that Botswana will meet the deadline. “The decision on the digital migration standards and related issues have not been finalised though it is expected the decision would be made very soon,” he said.

But would Botswana be able to meet ITU 2015 deadline? “We will definitely be able to catch on the deadline because we can easily switch on to any system because lots of ground has been done preparing us to switch to any standard,” he said confidently.

Botswana was part of the SADC countries that met in Mauritius in June 2009 to discuss the SADC road map to digital migration where it was unanimously agreed that Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial (DVB-T) would be the standard for the region. A team of technical experts has advised that Botswana should adopt the DVB-T2 standard.