{"id":44544,"date":"2013-08-21T10:18:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T08:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44544"},"modified":"2013-08-21T12:46:11","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T10:46:11","slug":"altech-in-r50-million-set-top-box-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/hardware\/44544\/altech-in-r50-million-set-top-box-push\/","title":{"rendered":"Altech in R50 million set-top box push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allied Technology (Altech<\/a>) UEC\u00a0says it has invested R50 million into the expansion of its\u00a0manufacturing facility in Durban\u00a0to meet the continuing demand for terrestrial set-top boxes, satellite decoders and smart TVs.<\/p>\n

Altech, which\u00a0claims\u00a0to be \u00a0the largest developer and manufacturer of set-top boxes in Africa,\u00a0delisted from the JSE on Tuesday (20 August), after\u00a0Allied Electronics (Altron<\/a>) completed its 100% acquisition of the group.<\/p>\n

On 16 August 2013, Altron shareholders approved the acquisition of 34,32 million Altech shares with a total cash value of R1.63 billion.<\/p>\n

According to Rajesh Ramkawal<\/a>, manufacturing executive at Altech UEC, the upgrade investment has created an additional 120 specialised and sustainable jobs at the manufacturing facility in Durban.<\/p>\n

The group said its Panasonic Next Production Modular (NPM) pick-and-place installation is the largest in the southern hemisphere. Its advanced process intelligence systems allows for zero board transfer time, smart feeder monitoring and a 400, 000 component placement per hour capability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis investment is one example of our commitment to creating employment as part of the digital migration process and government\u2019s overall job creation targets,\u201d Ramkawal\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis investment provides us with the capability to manufacture six million set-top boxes per annum and ensures that Altech UEC is well placed to meet current and future demand for set-top boxes and smart TVs,\u201d Ramkawal\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

South Africa is in the process of switching over\u00a0from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT<\/a>)\u00a0broadcasting.<\/p>\n

An STB is a decoder-like box that will allow TV viewers to use their existing analogue TV sets to receive the new DVB-T2 digital TV signal. This is set to replace South Africa\u2019s aging analogue terrestrial broadcasting standard.<\/p>\n

Government has delayed the tender process regarding the\u00a0manufacture an distribution of STBs.<\/p>\n

A host of companies \u2013 including\u00a0Ellies<\/a>, and\u00a0Altech<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 are vying to be a major player in the manufacture and distribution of the decoders.<\/p>\n

It is believed that as many as 11 million households would need a decoder in order to keep up with the new digital viewing standard.<\/p>\n

More on Altech<\/h3>\n

Altech delists from the JSE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Altron TMT to rise from Altech<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Altech UEC says it has invested R50 million into the expansion of its manufacturing facility in Durban to meet the continuing demand for terrestrial set-top boxes, satellite decoders and smart TVs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":44546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[311,309,2092,557,26,3646],"class_list":["post-44544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-altech","tag-altron","tag-dtt","tag-ellies","tag-headline","tag-set-top-boxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44544"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44559,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44544\/revisions\/44559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}