SBC’s DTT project update - Soft roll out early December |30 October 2017
The Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) has announced plan for a soft roll out to DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) in early December, with an official switchover, planned for early 2018.
This was announced by the chief executive of the SBC, Bérard Duprès, during a press conference at the SBC headquarters on Friday.
The migration from analogue broadcast to digital broadcast will be done in phases. The first phase will be the DTT, whereby reception will be via an SBC set-top-box (STB) and a UHF antenna.
The SBC will offer one free set-top-box per household. Distribution of STBs will require customers to provide their electricity bills as their customer number will be their unique reference number.
Viewers are advised to try and assess their reception with their current antenna in the first instance. Depending on where they are located, such an antenna might be sufficient. The SBC will not be providing antennas. This could be an opportunity for retailers to ensure an adequate supply of suitable UHF antennas on the market.
What will viewers see?
During the soft roll out, viewers will see all the free TV-channels offered by SBC (as per the attachment). They will also be able to listen to Radyo Sesel and Paradise FM from their TV.
There will, however, be only one SBC Channel during the soft rollout, and that will be SBC as we currently see it now.
Official Switchover
When the official switchover happens in early 2018, it will essentially be the unveiling of SBC1 and SBC2 Digital in HD (High Definition) channels. SBC will allow a period of dual illumination of both the Analogue and the Digital Transmissions after the Official Switchover date. This is expected to be around three months, after which the Analogue TV service will be switched off permanently.
Viewers will continue to be able to watch SBC on their current subscribed Cable TV providers (Cable TV & Intelvision) after the official switchover.
Commercial Offering
All TV channels at DTT Switchover will be free-to-view channels. SBC is endeavouring to provide additional paid-subscription channels soon after. More details will be provided in due course.
Beyond DTT
SBC is endeavouring to ensure that alongside the DTT offer, it is able to provide an OTT (Over-The-Top), as well as a Mobile TV offering. OTT will, evidently, NOT require a UHF antenna, but will still require an STB (with an Ethernet Port).
“OTT offering will come after the Official DTT Switchover, and will depend on SBC audience having access to this service from the ISPs that is not be data-depleting for the user's Internet usage. In other words, the OTT service must be free like DDT from the audience’s perspective. SBC’s intention to migrate into the multi-media platforms is to better serve its public broadcaster mandate to a changing, sophisticated and demanding audience. If we are unable to offer an OTT and mobile service, it will be a missed opportunity to future-proof our public broadcasting infrastructure and services,” said Mr Duprès.
Background
The 2006 ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Regional Radio-communications Conference (RRC-06) resulted in a Digital Plan and technical standards for migration to DTT in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (known as GE-06).
The ITU called on countries to switch-over to allow the radio frequency spectrum to be freed up for mobile broadband services. The ITU set a deadline of June 2015 for countries to migrate to DTT.
According to an ITU 2016 report, 66 countries around the world have completed digital migration, while 66 were on-going, 61 unknown and 14 had not started.
Seychelles is, evidently, in the ‘on-going’ category.
Only four out of the 15 member states that make up the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which Seychelles is a member, have fully migrated from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT).These are Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia and Tanzania.
Other member states, including South Africa and Zambia, have their DTT networks in operational mode.